In my youth I studied for ostentation; later, a little to gain wisdom; now, for recreation; never for gain.

My trade and art is to live.

I am myself the matter of my book.

If by being overstudious, we impair our health and spoil our good humor, let us give it up.

Our religion is made to eradicate vices, instead it encourages them, covers them, and nurtures them.

Vice leaves repentance in the soul, like an ulcer in the flesh, which is always scratching and lacerating itself; for reason effaces all other griefs and sorrows, but it begets that of repentance.

As for me, then, I love life and cultivate it just as God has been pleased to grant it to us.