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.

Who does not see that I have taken a road along which I shall go, without stopping and without effort, as long as there is ink and paper in the world? I cannot keep a record of my life by my actions; fortune places them too low. I keep it by my thoughts.

Nobody is exempt from saying stupid things, the harm is to do it presumptuously.

Adrian, the Emperor, exclaimed incessantly, when dying, "That the crowd of physicians had killed him."

I prefer the company of peasants because they have not been educated sufficiently to reason incorrectly.

The easy, gentle, and sloping path . . . is not the path of true virtue. It demands a rough and thorny road.

Our great and glorious masterpiece is to live appropriately.