There is perhaps no more obvious vanity than to write of it so vainly.

Long life, and short, are by death made all one; for there is no long, nor short, to things that are no more.

Let us permit nature to have her way. She understands her business better than we do.

Let [children] be able to do all things, and love to do only the good.

I seek in the reading of books, only to please myself, by an honest diversion.

Oh senseless man, who cannot possibly make a worm or a flea and yet will create Gods by the dozen!

Now, since our condition accommodates things to itself, and transforms them according to itself, we no longer know things in their reality; for nothing comes to us that is not altered and falsified by our Senses. When the compass, the square, and the rule are untrue, all the calculations drawn from them, all the buildings erected by their measure, are of necessity also defective and out of plumb. The uncertainty of our senses renders uncertain everything that they produce.