To compose our character is our duty, not to compose books, and to win, not battles and provinces, but order and tranquility in our conduct. Our great and glorious masterpiece is to live appropriately. All other things, ruling, hoarding, building, are only little appendages and props, at most.

There is nothing on which men are commonly more intent than on making a way for their opinions.

There is no doubt that Greek and Latin are great and handsome ornaments, but we buy them too dear.

I see men ordinarily more eager to discover a reason for things than to find out whether the things are so.

Man is quite insane. He wouldn?t know how to create a maggot, and he creates Gods by the dozen.

The bees pillage the flowers here and there but they make honey of them which is all their own; it is no longer thyme or marjolaine: so the pieces borrowed from others he will transform and mix up into a work all his own.

We are born to inquire into truth; it belongs to a greater to possess it