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

Nature without exercise is a seed shut up in a pod, and art without practice is nothing.

Learning is the property of those who fear to do disagreeable things.

Nothing, it appears to me, is of greater value in a man than the power of judgment; and the man who has it may be compared to a chest filled with books, for he is the son of nature and the father of art.

Anger represents a certain power, when a great mind, prevented from executing its own generous desires, is moved by it.

I am a free man. I do not need to copy Petrarca or Boccaccio. My own genius is enough. Let others worry themselves about style, and so cease to be themselves. Without a master, without a model, without a guide, I go to work and earn my living, my well-being and my fame.

They merit more praise who know how to suffer misery than those who temper themselves in contentment.