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.

If I were of the trade, I should naturalize art as much as they "artialize" nature.

To know how to live is my trade and my art.

Obsession is the wellspring of genius and madness.

The most unhappy and frail creatures are men and yet they are the proudest.

Give me the provisions and whole apparatus of a kitchen, and I would starve.

We are neither obstinately nor wilfully to oppose evils, nor truckle under them for want of courage, but that we are naturally to give way to them, according to their condition and our own, we ought to grant free passage to diseases; and I find they stay less with me who let them alone. And I have lost those which are reputed the most tenacious and obstinate of their own defervescence, without any help or art, and contrary to their rules. Let us a little permit nature to take her own way; she better understands her own affairs than we.