Fortune, seeing that she could not make fools wise, has made them lucky.

There is power in ambition, pleasure in luxury...but envy can gain nothing but vexation.

I do not correct my first imaginings by my second--well, yes, perhaps a word or so, but only to vary, not to delete. I want to represent the course of my humors and I want people to see each part at its birth.

People of our time are so formed for agitation and ostentation that goodness, moderation, equability, constancy, and such quiet and obscure qualities are no longer felt.

As for me, then, I love life and cultivate it just as God has been pleased to grant it to us.

There is no more expensive thing than a free gift.

I set forth a humble and inglorious life; that does not matter. You can tie up all moral philosophy with a common and private life just as well as with a life of richer stuff. Each man bears the entire form of man's estate.