The most evident token and apparent sign of true wisdom is a constant and unconstrained rejoicing.

We have so much ill fortune as inconstancy, or so much bad purpose as folly, we are not so full of evil as we are of inanity; we are not so wretched as we are base

I have often seen people uncivil by too much civility, and tiresome in their courtesy.

And one might therefore say of me that in this book I have only made up a bunch of other people's flowers, and that of my own I have only provided the string that ties them together.

The thing I fear most is fear.

Most of our occupations are low comedy.... We must play our part duly, but as the part of a borrowed character. Of the mask and appearance we must not make a real essence, nor of what is foreign what is our very own.

Experience has further taught me this, that we ruin ourselves by impatience.