The laws of conscience, though we ascribe them to nature, actually come from custom.

True freedom is to have power over oneself for everything.

Books are a languid pleasure.

Not because Socrates said so, but because it is in truth my own disposition — and perchance to some excess — I look upon all men as my compatriots, and embrace a Pole as a Frenchman, making less account of the national than of the universal and common bond.

In truth, the care and expense of our fathers aims only at furnishing our heads with knowledge; of judgement and virtue, little news.

Who so hath his mind on taking, hath it no more on what he taketh.

The art of dining well is no slight art, the pleasure not a slight pleasure; neither the greatest captains nor the greatest philosophers have disdained the use or science of eating well.