Learning is a good medicine: but no medicine is powerful enough to preserve itself from taint and corruption independently of defects in the jar that it is kept in. One man sees clearly but does not see straight: consequently he sees what is good but fails to follow it; he sees knowledge and does not use it.

Who does not in some sort live to others, does not live much to himself.

If you want it to be so, history can be a waste of time; it can also be, if you want it to be so, a study bearing fruit beyond price.

Gentleness and repose are paramount to everything else in woman.

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.

It would be better to have no laws at all, than to have too many.

Satiety comes of too frequent repetition and he who will not give himself leisure to be thirsty can never find the true pleasure of drinking