I am myself the matter of my book.

If to take up books were to take them in, and if to see them were to consider them, and to run through them were to grasp them, I should be wrong to make myself out quite as ignorant as I say I am.

The most universal quality is diversity.

Virtue shuns ease as a companion. It demands a rough and thorny path.

No wind serves him who addresses his voyage to no certain port.

The secret counsels of princes are a troublesome burden to such as have only to execute them.

There is no so wretched and coarse a soul wherein some particular faculty is not seen to shine.