Contemplate the extent and stability of the heavens, and then at last cease to admire worthless things.

So it follows that those who have reason have freedom to will or not to will, although this freedom is not equal in all of them. [...] human souls are more free when they persevere in the contemplation of the mind of God, less free when they descend to the corporeal, and even less free when they are entirely imprisoned in earthly flesh and blood.

If there is anything good about nobility it is that it enforces the necessity of avoiding degeneracy.

Music is part of us, and either ennobles or degrades our behavior.

In other living creatures the ignorance of themselves is nature, but in men it is a vice.

Whose happiness is so firmly established that he has no quarrel from any side with his estate of life?

In omni adversitate fortunæ, infelicissimum genus est infortunii fuisse felicem In every adversity of fortune, to have been happy is the most unhappy kind of misfortune.