For among other things he had been counseled to bring me to love knowledge and duty by my own choice, without forcing my will, and to educate my soul entirely through gentleness and freedom.

The premeditation of death is the premeditation of liberty; he who has learnt to die has forgot to serve.

If others surpass you in knowledge, in charm, in strength, in fortune, you have other causes to blame for it; but if you yield tothem in stoutness of heart you have only yourself to blame.

If people must be talking about me, I would have it to be truthfully and justly. I would willingly return from the next world to contradict any person who described me other than I was, although he did it to honour me.

Now, of all the benefits that virtue confers upon us, the contempt of death is one of the greatest.

The bitterness of the potion, and the abhorrence of the patient are necessary circumstances to the operation. It must be something to trouble and disturb the stomach that must purge and cure it.

A strong imagination begetteth opportunity.