I must use these great men's virtues as a cloak for my weakness.

Marriage has, for its share, usefulness, justice, honour, and constancy; a stale but more durable pleasure. Love is grounded on pleasure alone, and it is indeed more gratifying to the senses, keener and more acute; a pleasure stirred and kept alive by difficulties. There must be a sting and a smart in it. It ceases to be love if it has no shafts and no fire.

Such as are in immediate fear of a losing their estates, of banishment, or of slavery, live in perpetual anguish, and lose all appetite and repose; whereas such as are actually poor, slaves, or exiles, ofttimes live as merrily as other folk.

The utility of living consists not in the length of days, but in the use of time; a man may have lived long, and yet lived but a little.

A lady could not boast of her chastity who was never tempted.

My reason is not framed to bend or stoop: my knees are.

It is in the enjoyment and not in mere possession that makes for happiness.