Poetry reproduces an indefinable mood that is more amorous than love itself. Venus is not so beautiful all naked, alive, and panting, as she is here in Virgil.

The truth of these days is not that which really is, but what every man persuades another man to believe.

One should be ever booted and spurred and ready to depart.

The utility of living consists not in the length of days, but in the use of time; a man may have lived long, and yet lived but a little.

The middle sort of historians (of which the most part are) spoil all; they will chew our meat for us.

The common notions that we find in credit around us and infused into our souls by our fathers' seed, these seem to be the universal and natural ones. Whence it comes to pass that what is off the hinges of custom, people believe to be off the hinges of reason.

If you have known how to compose your life, you have done a great deal more than the person who knows how to compose a book. You have done more than the one who has taken cities and empires.