It is no hard matter to get children; but after they are born, then begins the trouble, solicitude, and care rightly to train, principle, and bring them up.

No man is exempt from saying silly things; the mischief is to say them deliberately.

Certainly, if he still has himself, a man of understanding has lost nothing.

In his commerce with men I mean him to include- and that principally- those who live only in the memory of books. By means of history he will frequent those great souls of former years. If you want it to be so, history can be a waste of time; it can also be, if you want it to be so, a study bearing fruit beyond price.

If these Essays were worthy of being judged, it might fall out, in my opinion, that they would not find much favour, either with common and vulgar minds, or with uncommon and eminent ones: the former would not find enough in them, the latter would find too much; they might manage to live somewhere in the middle region.

Life in itself is neither good nor evil, it is the place of good and evil, according to what you make it.

There are some defeats more triumphant than victories.