Report followeth not all goodness, except difficulty and rarity be joined thereto.

The body enjoys a great share in our being, and has an eminent place in it. Its structure and composition, therefore, are worthy of proper consideration.

We find ourselves more taken with the running up and down, the games, and puerile simplicities of our children, than we do, afterward, with their most complete actions; as if we had loved them for our sport, like monkeys, and not as men.

No profession or occupation is more pleasing than the military; a profession or exercise both noble in execution (for the strongest, most generous and proudest of all virtues is true valor) and noble in its cause. No utility either more just or universal than the protection of the repose or defense of the greatness of one's country. The company and daily conversation of so many noble, young and active men cannot but be well-pleasing to you.

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

We every day and every hour say things of another that we might more properly say of ourselves, could we but apply our observations to our own concerns.

Now, since everything else is furnished with the exact amount of needle and thread required to maintain its being, it is in truth incredible that we alone should be brought into the world in a defective and indigent state, in a state such that we cannot maintain ourselves without external aid.