Nature is a gentle guide, but not more sweet and gentle than prudent and just.

I speak the truth, not my fill of it, but as much as I dare speak; and I dare to do so a little more as I grow old.

Our thoughts are always elsewhere; we are stayed and supported by the hope for a better life, or by the hope that our children will turn out well, or that our name will be famous in the future, or that we shall escape the evils of this life, or that vengeance threatens those who are the cause of our death.

It is not death, it is dying that alarms me.

Whatever is enforced by command is more imputed to him who exacts than to him who performs.

Courtesy is a science of the highest importance. It is...opening a door that we may derive instruction from the example of others, and at the same time enabling us to benefit them by our example, if there be anything in our character worthy of imitation.

The art of dining well is no slight art, the pleasure not a slight pleasure; neither the greatest captains nor the greatest philosophers have disdained the use or science of eating well.