Let us permit nature to have her way. She understands her business better than we do.

For me, who only desire to become wise, not more learned or eloquent, these logical or Aristotelian dispositions of parts are of no use.

No one should be subjected to force over things which belonged to him.

The most beautiful lives, to my mind, are those that conform to the common human pattern, with order, but without miracle and without eccentricity.

The public weal requires that men should betray, and lie, and massacre.

I must use these great men's virtues as a cloak for my weakness.

Whatever I may be, I want to be elsewhere than on paper. My art and my industry have been employed in making myself good for something; my studies, in teaching me to do, not to write. I have put all my efforts into forming my life. That is my trade and my work.