My library is my kingdom, and here I try to make my rule absolute-shutting off this single nook from wife, daughter and society. Elsewhere I have only a verbal authority, and vague. Unhappy is the man, in my opinion, who has no spot at home where he can be at home to himself-to court himself and hide away.

All we do is to look after the opinions and learning of others: we ought to make them our own.

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

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

Wisdom has its excesses, and has no less need of moderation than folly.

The public weal requires that men should betray, and lie, and massacre.

It needs good management to enjoy life. I enjoy it twice as much as others, for the measure of enjoyment depends on the greater or less attention that we give to it...The shorter my possession of life the deeper and fuller I must make it.