I write to keep from going mad from the contradictions I find among mankind - and to work some of those contradictions out for myself.

Truly man is a marvelously vain, diverse, and undulating object. It is hard to found any constant and uniform judgment on him.

Nature has, herself, I fear, imprinted in man a kind of instinct to inhumanity.

Only he can judge of matters great and high whose soul is likewise.

Might I have had my own will, I would not have married Wisdom herself, if she would have had me.

Fortune, to show us her power in all things, and to abate our presumption, seeing she could not make fools wise, has made them fortunate.

If health and a fair day smile upon me, I am a very good fellow; if a corn trouble my toe, I am sullen, out of humor, and inaccessible.