And one might therefore say of me that in this book I have only made up a bunch of other people's flowers, and that of my own I have only provided the string that ties them together.

Men of simple understanding, little inquisitive and little instructed, make good Christians.

No-one is exempt from speaking nonsense – the only misfortune is to do it solemnly.

We are all of us richer than we think we are.

We took advantage of [the Indians'] ignorance and inexperience to incline them the more easily toward treachery, lewdness, avarice, and every sort of inhumanity and cruelty, after the example and pattern of our ways.

It is commonly seene by experience, that excellent memories do rather accompany weake judgements.

It is fear that I stand most in fear of, in sharpness it exceeds every other feeling.