Only a very few can be learned, but all can be Christian, all can be devout, and – I shall boldly add – all can be theologians.

Read first the best books. The important thing for you is not how much you know, but the quality of what you know.

There are some whose only reason for inciting war is to use it as a means to exercise their tyranny over their subjects more easily. For in times of peace the authority of the assembly, the dignity of the magistrates, the force of the laws stand in the way to some extent of the ruler doing what he likes. But once war is declared then the whole business of state is subject to the will of a few ... They demand as much money as they like. Why say more?

Nothing is so foolish, they say, as for a man to stand for office and woo the crowd to win its vote, buy its support with presents, court the applause of all those fools and feel self-satisfied when they cry their approval, and then in his hour of triumph to be carried round like an effigy for the public to stare at, and end up cast in bronze to stand in the market place.

Everybody hates a prodigy, detests an old head on young shoulders.

By identifying the new learning with heresy, you make orthodoxy synonymous with ignorance.

Anything which causes trouble has special merit in their eyes.