As great enmities spring from great friendships, and mortal distempers from vigorous health, so do the most surprising and the wildest frenzies from the high and lively agitations of our souls.

Children's games are hardly games. Children are never more serious than when they play.

Everything must not always be said, for that would be folly.

The wise man lives as long as he ought, not so long as he can.

He that first likened glory to a shadow did better than he was aware of. They are both of them things excellently vain. Glory also, like a shadow, goes sometimes before the body, and sometimes in length infinitely exceeds it.

If you have known how to compose your life, you have done a great deal more than the person who knows how to compose a book. You have done more than the one who has taken cities and empires.

The finest souls are those that have the most variety and suppleness.