If people must be talking about me, I would have it to be truthfully and justly. I would willingly return from the next world to contradict any person who described me other than I was, although he did it to honour me.

It is only certain that there is nothing certain, and that nothing is more miserable or more proud than man.

Necessity reconciles and brings men together; and this accidental connection afterward forms itself into laws.

We find our energies are actually cramped when we are overanxious to succeed.

It is fear that I stand most in fear of, in sharpness it exceeds every other feeling.

We should rather examine, who is better learned, than who is more learned.

Pythagoras used to say that life resembles the Olympic Games: a few people strain their muscles to carry off a prize; others bring trinkets to sell to the crowd for gain; and some there are, and not the worst, who seek no other profit than to look at the show and see how and why everything is done; spectators of the life of other people in order to judge and regulate their own.