I am afraid that our eyes are bigger than our stomachs, and that we have more curiosity than understanding. We grasp at everything, but catch nothing except wind.

My appetite comes to me while eating.

What a wonderful thing it is that drop of seed, from which we are produced, bears in itself the impressions, not only of the bodily shape, but of the thoughts and inclinations of our fathers!

For me, who only desire to become wise, not more learned or eloquent, these logical or Aristotelian dispositions of parts are of no use.

All the fame you should look for in life is to have lived it quietly.

The wise man should withdraw his soul within, out of the crowd, and keep it in freedom and power to judge things freely; but as for externals, he should wholly follow the accepted fashions and forms.

'As a man who knows how to make his education into a rule of life not a means of showing off; who can control himself and obey his own principles.' The true mirror of our discourse is the course of our lives.