Whoever will be cured of ignorance, let him confess it.

To say less of yourself than is true is stupidity, not modesty. To pay yourself less than you are worth is cowardice and pusillanimity.

It is not necessity but abundance which produces greed.

It is a thorny undertaking, and more so than it seems, to follow a movement so wandering as that of our mind, to penetrate the opaque depths of its innermost folds, to pick out and immobilize the innumerable flutterings that agitate it.

Books are pleasant, but if by being over-studious we impair our health and spoil our good humour, two of the best things we have, let us give it over. I, for my part, am one of those who think no fruit derived from them can recompense so great a loss.

The dispersing and scattering our names into many mouths, we call making them more great.

There is nothing which so poisons princes as flattery, nor anything whereby wicked men more easily obtain credit and favor with them.