Angry men are blind and foolish, for reason at such time takes flight and, in her absence; wrath plunders all the riches of the intellect, while the judgment remains the prisoner of its own pride.

Desire is poison at lunch and wormwood at dinner; your bed is a stone, friendship is hateful and your fancy is always fixed on one thing.

We are the buffoons of our children.

Poetry is a whim of Nature in her lighter moods; it requires nothing but its own madness and, lacking that, it becomes a soundless cymbal, a belfry without a bell.

If you want to annoy your neighbors, tell the truth about them.

What evil is there in seeing a man possess a woman? Why, the beasts would be more free than we!

Flee laziness which while it produces an immediate delight, ends in the sorrow of repentance. And know that nature without exercise is a seed shut up in the pod, and art without practice is nothing.