Order a purge for your brain, it will there be much better employed than upon your stomach.

I turn my gaze inward. I fix it there and keep it busy. I look inside myself. I continually observe myself.

The least strained and most natural ways of the soul are the most beautiful; the best occupations are the least forced.

I speak the truth, not my fill of it, but as much as I dare speak; and I dare to do so a little more as I grow old.

I put forward formless and unresolved notions, as do those who publish doubtful questions to debate in the schools, not to establish the truth but to seek it.

As for our pupils talk, let his virtue and his sense of right and wrong shine through it and have no guide but reason. Make him understand that confessing an error which he discovers in his own argument even when he alone has noticed it is an act of justice and integrity, which are the main qualities he pursues; stubbornness and rancour are vulgar qualities, visible in common souls whereas to think again, to change one's mind and to give up a bad case on the heat of the argument are rare qualities showing strength and wisdom.

We do not marry for ourselves, whatever we say; we marry just as much or more for our posterity, for our family. The practice and benefit of marriage concerns our race very far beyond us.