To die is not to play a part in society; it is the act of a single person. Let us live and laugh among our friends; let us die and sulk among strangers.

Pythagoras used to say that life resembles the Olympic Games: a few people strain their muscles to carry off a prize; others bring trinkets to sell to the crowd for gain; and some there are, and not the worst, who seek no other profit than to look at the show and see how and why everything is done; spectators of the life of other people in order to judge and regulate their own.

Can anything be imagined so ridiculous that this miserable and wretched creature, who is not so much as master of himself, but subject to the injuries of all things, should call himself master and emperor of the world, of which he has not power to know the least part, much less to command the whole?

Whatever the Benefits of Fortune are , they yet require a Palate fit to relish and taste them; 'Tis Fruition, and not Possession, that renders us Happy.

We commend a horse for his strength, and sureness of foot, and not for his rich caparisons; a greyhound for his share of heels, not for his fine collar; a hawk for her wing, not for her jesses and bells. Why, in like manner, do we not value a man for what is properly his own? He has a great train, a beautiful palace, so much credit, so many thousand pounds a year, and all these are about him, but not in him.

I don't break the law* made for crooks, when I take away my own property - thus I am not obliged to conform to the law made for murderers when I deprive myself of my own life.

I never met a man who thought his thinking was faulty.