Is it not a noble farce, wherein kings, republics, and emperors have for so many ages played their parts, and to which the whole vast universe serves for a theatre?

Man is the sole animal whose nudities offend his own companions, and the only one who, in his natural actions, withdraws and hides himself from his own kind.

The easy, gentle, and sloping path . . . is not the path of true virtue. It demands a rough and thorny road.

We are more solicitous that men speak of us, than how they speak.

The beauty of stature is the only beauty of men.

Live as long as you please, you will strike nothing off the time you will have to spend dead.

Nature should have been pleased to have made this age miserable, without making it also ridiculous.