How many things we held yesterday as articles of faith which today we tell as fables.

I set forth a humble and inglorious life; that does not matter. You can tie up all moral philosophy with a common and private life just as well as with a life of richer stuff. Each man bears the entire form of man's estate.

Most pleasures embrace us but to strangle.

Speech belongs half to the speaker, half to the listener. The latter must prepare to receive it according to the motion it takes.

Now, of all the benefits that virtue confers upon us, the contempt of death is one of the greatest.

A tutor should not be continually thundering instruction into the ears of his pupil, as if he were pouring it through a funnel, but, after having put the lad, like a young horse, on a trot, before him, to observe his paces, and see what he is able to perform, should, according to the extent of his capacity, induce him to taste, to distinguish, and to find out things for himself; sometimes opening the way, at other times leaving it for him to open; and by abating or increasing his own pace, accommodate his precepts to the capacity of his pupil.

I have gathered a posy of other men’s flowers and only the thread that bonds them is my own.