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

It is not my deeds that I write down, it is myself, my essence.

Ceremony forbids us to express by words things that are lawful and natural, and we obey it; reason forbids us to do things unlawful and ill, and nobody obeys it.

Whom conscience, ne'er asleep, Wounds with incessant strokes, not loud, but deep.

The laws of conscience, which we pretend to be derived from nature, proceed from Custom.

There is no passion that so much transports men from their right judgments as anger. No one would demur upon punishing a judge with death who should condemn a criminal upon the account of his own choler; why then should fathers and pedants be any more allowed to whip and chastise children in their anger? It is then no longer correction bat revenge. Chastisement is instead of physic to children; and should we suffer a physician who should be animated against and enraged at his patient?

There is more ado to interpret interpretations than to interpret things, and more books upon books than upon any other subject; we do nothing but comment upon one another. Every place swarms with commentaries; of authors there is great scarcity.