Friendship is the highest degree of perfection in society.

For among other things he had been counseled to bring me to love knowledge and duty by my own choice, without forcing my will, and to educate my soul entirely through gentleness and freedom.

The art of dining well is no slight art, the pleasure not a slight pleasure; neither the greatest captains nor the greatest philosophers have disdained the use or science of eating well.

Oh, what a valiant faculty is hope, that in a mortal subject, and in a moment, makes nothing of usurping infinity, immensity, eternity, and of supplying its masters indigence, at its pleasure, with all things he can imagine or desire!

For me, who only desire to become wise, not more learned or eloquent, these logical or Aristotelian dispositions of parts are of no use.

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

A liar would be brave toward God, while he is a coward toward men; for a lie faces God, and shrinks from man.