Our great and glorious masterpiece is to live appropriately.

In true friendship, in which I am expert, I give myself to my friend more than I draw him to me. I not only like doing him good better than having him do me good, but also would rather have him do good to himself than to me; he does me most good when he does himself good.

Learned we may be with another man's learning: we can only be wise with wisdom of our own.

Man is certainly crazy. He could not make a mite, and he makes gods by the dozen.

The beautiful souls are they that are universal, open, and ready for all things.

Tortures are a dangerous invention, and seem to be a test of endurance rather than of truth.

One man may have some special knowledge at first-hand about the character of a river or a spring, who otherwise knows only what everyone else knows. Yet to give currency to this shred of information, he will undertake to write on the whole science of physics. From this fault many great troubles spring.