Nature has made us a present of a broad capacity for entertaining ourselves apart, and often calls us to do so, to teach us that we owe ourselves in part to society, but in the best part to ourselves.

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

Among the liberal arts, let us begin with the art that liberates us.

To behave rightly, we ourselves should never lay a hand on our servants as long as our anger lasts. Things will seem different to us when we have quieted and cooled down.

The bees pillage the flowers here and there but they make honey of them which is all their own; it is no longer thyme or marjolaine: so the pieces borrowed from others he will transform and mix up into a work all his own.

I love a gay and sociable wisdom, and shun harshness and austerity in behaviour, holding every surly countenance suspect.

An orator of past times declared that his calling was to make small things appear to be grand.