The most universal quality is diversity.

It is easier to write an indifferent poem than to understand a good one.

Princes give mee sufficiently, if they take nothing from me, and doe me much good, if they doe me no hurt: it is all I require of them.

All permanent decisions are made in a temporary state of mind.

So it is with minds. Unless you keep them busy with some definite subject that will bridle and control them, they throw themselves in disorder hither and yon in the vague field of imagination... And there is no mad or idle fancy that they do not bring forth in the agitation.

For table-talk, I prefer the pleasant and witty before the learned and the grave; in bed, beauty before goodness.

Examples teach us that in military affairs, and all others of a like nature, study is apt to enervate and relax the courage of man, rather than to give strength and energy to the mind.