In order always to learn something from others (which is the finest school there can be), I observe in my travels this practice: I always steer those with whom I talk back to the things they know best.

We must reserve a back shop all our own entirely free, in which to establish our real liberty and our principal retreat and solitude.

Wise men have more to learn of fools than fools of wise men.

In the education of children there is nothing like alluring the interest and affection; otherwise you only make so many asses laden with books.

There is nothing which so poisons princes as flattery, nor anything whereby wicked men more easily obtain credit and favor with them.

I give my opinion not as being good, but as being my own.

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.