We have power over nothing except our will.

We perceive no charms that are not sharpened, puffed out, and inflated by artifice. Those which glide along naturally and simply easily escape a sight so gross as ours.

He that is a friend to himself, know; he is a friend to all.

If not for that of conscience, yet at least for ambition's sake, let us reject ambition, let us disdain that thirst of honor and renown, so low and mendicant; that it makes us beg it of all sorts of people.

There is little less trouble in governing a private family than a whole kingdom.

Man is quite insane. He wouldn?t know how to create a maggot, and he creates Gods by the dozen.

It is far more probable that our senses should deceive us, than that an old woman should be carried up a chimney on a broom stick; and that it is far less astonishing that witnesses should lie, than that witches should perform the acts that were alleged.