Men throw themselves on foreign assistances to spare their own, which, after all, are the only certain and sufficient ones.

I want to be seen here in my simple, natural, ordinary fashion, without straining or artifice; for it is myself that I portray... I am myself the matter of my book.

For me, who only desire to become wise, not more learned or eloquent, these logical or Aristotelian dispositions of parts are of no use.

Their [the Skeptics'] way of speaking is: "I settle nothing. . . . I do not understand it. . . . Nothing seems true that may not seem false." Their sacramental word is . . . , which is to say, I suspend my judgment.

No two men ever judged alike of the same thing, and it is impossible to find two opinions exactly similar, not only in different men but in the same men at different times.

Why dost thou complain of this world? It detains thee not; thy own cowardice is the cause, if thou livest in pain.

Amongst all other vices there is none I hate more than cruelty, both by nature and judgment, as the extremest of all vices.