Since I would rather make of him an able man than a learned man, I would also urge that care be taken to choose a guide with a well-made rather than a well-filled head.

What harm cause not those huge draughts or pictures which wanton youth with chalk or coals draw in each passage, wall or stairs of our great houses, whence a cruel contempt of our natural store is bred in them?

I seek in books only to give myself pleasure by honest amusement; or if I study, I seek only the learning that treats of the knowledge of myself and instructs me in how to die well and live well.

The desire for riches is more sharpened by their use than by their need. Pleasing all: a mark that can never be aimed at or hit.

There is not one of us that would not be worse than kings, if so continually corrupted as they are with a sort of vermin called flatterers.

The reverse side of truth has a hundred thousand shapes and no defined limits.

Our great and glorious masterpiece is to live appropriately.