He was doubtless an understanding Fellow that said, there was no happy Marriage but betwixt a blind Wife and a deaf Husband.

The finest lives in my opinion are the common model, without miracle and without extravagance.

The only good histories are those written by those who had command in the events they describe.

Is there a polity better ordered, the offices better distributed, and more inviolably observed and maintained, than that of bees?

When I dance, I dance; when I sleep, I sleep; yes, and when I walk alone in a beautiful orchard, if my thoughts drift to far-off matters for some part of the time for some other part I lead them back again to the walk, the orchard, to the sweetness of this solitude, to myself.

In the examples that I here bring in of what I have [read], heard, done or said, I have refrained from daring to alter even the smallest and most indifferent circumstances. My conscience falsifies not an iota; for my knowledge I cannot answer.

In my youth I studied for ostentation; later, a little to gain wisdom; now, for recreation; never for gain.