Not being able to govern events, I govern myself, and apply myself to them if they will not apply themselves to me.

Lying is a disgraceful vice, and one that Plutarch paints in most disgraceful colors, when he says that it is "affording testimony that one first despises God, and then fears men." It is not possible more happily to describe its horrible, disgusting, and abandoned nature; for can we imagine anything more vile than to be cowards with regard to men, and brave with regard to God.

Since we cannot match it let us take our revenge by abusing it.

I see several animals that live so entire and perfect a life, some without sight, others without hearing: who knows whether to us also one, two, or three, or many other senses, may not be wanting?

If atoms do, by chance, happen to combine themselves into so many shapes, why have they never combined together to form a house or a slipper? By the same token, why do we not believe that if innumerable letters of the Greek alphabet were poured all over the market-place they would eventually happen to form the text of the Iliad?

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

Presumption is our natural and original malady. The most vulnerable and frail of all creatures is man, and at the same time the most arrogant.