The souls of emperors and cobblers are cast in the same mold...The same reason that makes us wrangle with a neighbor creates a war betwixt princes.

Poetry reproduces an indefinable mood that is more amorous than love itself. Venus is not so beautiful all naked, alive, and panting, as she is here in Virgil.

So it is with minds. Unless you keep them busy with some definite subject that will bridle and control them, they throw themselves in disorder hither and yon in the vague field of imagination... And there is no mad or idle fancy that they do not bring forth in the agitation.

Glory consists of two parts: the one in setting too great a value upon ourselves, and the other in setting too little a value upon others.

If my mind could gain a firm footing, I would not make essays, I would make decisions; but it is always in apprenticeship and on trial.

Were I to live my life over again, I should live it just as I have done. I neither complain of the past, nor do I fear the future.

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