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.

Gentleness and repose are paramount to everything else in woman.

The vulgar and common esteem is seldom happy in hitting right; and I am much mistaken if, amongst the writings of my time, the worst are not those which have most gained the popular applause.

Long life, and short, are by death made all one; for there is no long, nor short, to things that are no more.

To smell, though well, is to stink.

Fortune does us neither good nor hurt; she only presents us the matter, and the seed, which our soul, more powerfully than she, turns and applies as she best pleases; being the sole cause and sovereign mistress of her own happy or unhappy condition.

It is equally pointless to weep because we won't be alive a hundred years from now as that we were not here a hundred years ago.