If the head is lost, all that perishes is the individual; if the balls are lost, all of human nature perishes.

In their rules there was only one clause: Do what you will.

Do you know what Agelisas said, when he was asked why the great city of Lacedomonie was not girded with walls? Because, pointing out the inhabitants and citizens of the city, so expert in military discipline and so strong and well armed: "Here," he said, "are the walls of the city," meaning that there is no wall but of bones, and that towns and cities can have no more secure nor stronger wall than the virtue of their citizens and inhabitants.

Time, which wears down and diminishes all things, augments and increases good deeds, because a good turn liberally offered to a reasonable man grows continually through noble thought and memory.

Nature made the day for exercise, work and seeing to one's business; and ... it provides us with a candle, which is to say the bright and joyous light of the sun.

The age was still dark and reeked of the havoc and misfortunes of the Goths who had put all good literature to destruction. But, by God's goodness, in my time light and dignity were returned to letters, and I see there such improvement that today I would have great difficulty being admitted to the most elementary classes--I, who in my time was reputed to be (and not wrongly) to be the most knowledgeable person of the century.

Bring down the curtain, the farce is over