Don't discuss yourself, for you are bound to lose; if you belittle yourself, you are believed; if you praise yourself, you are disbelieved.

Amongst so many borrowed things, am glad if I can steal one, disguising and altering it for some new service.

Men throw themselves on foreign assistances to spare their own, which, after all, are the only certain and sufficient ones.

We are more solicitous that men speak of us, than how they speak.

Authors communicate with the people by some special extrinsic mark; I am the first to do so by my entire being, as Michel de Montaigne.

I want death to find me planting my cabbages, but careless of death, and still more of my unfinished garden.

It has never occurred to me to wish for empire or royalty, nor for the eminence of those high and commanding fortunes. My aim lies not in that direction; I love myself too well.