Pythagoras used to say that life resembles the Olympic Games: a few people strain their muscles to carry off a prize; others bring trinkets to sell to the crowd for gain; and some there are, and not the worst, who seek no other profit than to look at the show and see how and why everything is done; spectators of the life of other people in order to judge and regulate their own.

Since I would rather make of him an able man than a learned man, I would also urge that care be taken to choose a guide with a well-made rather than a well-filled head.

There is not one of us that would not be worse than kings, if so continually corrupted as they are with a sort of vermin called flatterers.

A man should not so much respect what he eats, as with whom he eats.

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

This idea is more surely understood by interrogation; WHAT DO I KNOW? which I bear as my motto with the emblem of a pair of scales.

The world always looks straights ahead; as for me, I turn my gaze inward, I fix it there and keep it busy. Everyone looks in front of him: as for me, I look inside me: I have no business but with myself; I continually observe myself, I take stock of myself, I taste myself. Others...they always go forward; as for me, I roll about in myself.