Nature should have been pleased to have made this age miserable, without making it also ridiculous.

Have you been able to think out and manage your own life? You have done the greatest task of all.... All other things, ruling, hoarding, building, are only little appendages and props, at most.

There is no knowledge so hard to acquire as the knowledge of how to live this life well and naturally.

There is no man so good, who, were he to submit all his thoughts and actions to the laws, would not deserve hanging ten times in his life.

As soon as women become ours we are no longer theirs.

I do not believe, from what I have been told about this people, that there is anything barbarous or savage about them, except that we all call barbarous anything that is contrary to our own habits.

There is a sort of gratification in doing good which makes us rejoice in ourselves.