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

The curiosity of knowing things has been given to man for a scourge.

Greatness of soul consists not so much in soaring high and in pressing forward, as in knowing how to adapt and limit oneself.

There is a huge gulf between the man who follows the conventions and laws of his country and the man who sets out to regiment them and to change them.

The shortest way to arrive at glory would be to do that for conscience which we do for glory.

The dispersing and scattering our names into many mouths, we call making them more great.

Such as are in immediate fear of a losing their estates, of banishment, or of slavery, live in perpetual anguish, and lose all appetite and repose; whereas such as are actually poor, slaves, or exiles, ofttimes live as merrily as other folk.