That conceit, elegantly expressed by the Emperor Charles V., in his instructions to the King, his son, "that fortune hath somewhat the nature of a woman, that if she be too much wooed she is the farther off.

To be free minded and cheerfully disposed at hours of meat and sleep and of exercise is one of the best precepts of long lasting.

The best armor is to keep out of gunshot.

The wonder of a single snowflake outweighs the wisdom of a million meteorologists.

There ought to be gardens for all months in the year, in which, severally, things of beauty may be then in season.

Gardening is the purest of human pleasures.

Believing that I was born for the service of mankind, and regarding the care of the commonwealth as a kind of common property which, like the air and the water, belongs to everybody, I set myself to consider in what way mankind might be best served, and what service I was myself best fitted by nature to perform.