Women are not altogether in the wrong when they refuse the rules of life prescribed to the World, for men only have established them and without their consent.

Books are pleasant, but if by being over-studious we impair our health and spoil our good humour, two of the best things we have, let us give it over. I, for my part, am one of those who think no fruit derived from them can recompense so great a loss.

Stupidity and wisdom meet in the same centre of sentiment and resolution, in the suffering of human accidents.

Fear sometimes adds wings to the heels, and sometimes nails them to the ground, and fetters them from moving.

If these Essays were worthy of being judged, it might fall out, in my opinion, that they would not find much favour, either with common and vulgar minds, or with uncommon and eminent ones: the former would not find enough in them, the latter would find too much; they might manage to live somewhere in the middle region.

Might I have had my own will, I would not have married Wisdom herself, if she would have had me.

Those sciences which govern the morals of mankind, such as Theology and Philosophy, make everything their concern: no activity is so private or so secret as to escape their attention or their jurisdiction.