Water, earth, air, fire, and the other parts of this structure of mine are no more instruments of your life than instruments of your death. Why do you fear your last day? It contributes no more to your death than each of the others. The last step does not cause the fatigue, but reveals it. All days travel toward death, the last one reaches it.

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.

When I play with my cat, who knows whether she is not amusing herself with me more than I with her.

Every man has within himself the entire human condition

There is nothing which so poisons princes as flattery, nor anything whereby wicked men more easily obtain credit and favor with them.

A wise man never loses anything, if he has himself.

If these Essays were worthy of being judged, it might fall out, in my opinion, that they would not find much favour, either with common and vulgar minds, or with uncommon and eminent ones: the former would not find enough in them, the latter would find too much; they might manage to live somewhere in the middle region.