If these Essays were worthy of being judged, it might fall out, in my opinion, that they would not find much favour, either with common and vulgar minds, or with uncommon and eminent ones: the former would not find enough in them, the latter would find too much; they might manage to live somewhere in the middle region.

There is as much difference between us and ourselves as there is between us and others.

This very Rome that we behold deserves our love ...: the only common and universal city.

Adrian, the Emperor, exclaimed incessantly, when dying, "That the crowd of physicians had killed him."

I, who am king of the matter I treat, and who owe an accounting for it to no one, do not for all that believe myself in all I write. I often hazard sallies of my mind which I mistrust.

A man must learn to endure patiently what he cannot avoid conveniently.

Oh, what a valiant faculty is hope, that in a mortal subject, and in a moment, makes nothing of usurping infinity, immensity, eternity, and of supplying its masters indigence, at its pleasure, with all things he can imagine or desire!