Our thoughts are always elsewhere; we are stayed and supported by the hope for a better life, or by the hope that our children will turn out well, or that our name will be famous in the future, or that we shall escape the evils of this life, or that vengeance threatens those who are the cause of our death.

I prefer the company of peasants because they have not been educated sufficiently to reason incorrectly.

In truth, knowledge is a great and very useful quality; those who despise it give evidence enough of their stupidity. Yet I do not set its value at that extreme measure that some attribute to it.

Pride dwells in the thought; the tongue can have but a very little share in it.

In true friendship, in which I am expert, I give myself to my friend more than I draw him to me. I not only like doing him good better than having him do me good, but also would rather have him do good to himself than to me; he does me most good when he does himself good.

If there is such a thing as a good marriage, it is because it resembles friendship rather than love.

The middle sort of historians (of which the most part are) spoil all; they will chew our meat for us.