And as hearbes and trees are bettered and fortified by being transplanted, so formes of speach are embellished and graced by variation.... As in our ordinary language, we shall sometimes meete with excellent phrases, and quaint metaphors, whose blithnesse fadeth through age, and colour is tarnish by to common using them.

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

Not because Socrates said so, but because it is in truth my own disposition — and perchance to some excess — I look upon all men as my compatriots, and embrace a Pole as a Frenchman, making less account of the national than of the universal and common bond.

No-one is exempt from speaking nonsense – the only misfortune is to do it solemnly.

Have you known how to take rest? You have done more than he who hath taken empires and cities.

He who fears he will suffer, already suffers from his fear.

Difficulty is a coin the learned make use of like jugglers, to conceal the inanity of their art.