For, in the language of Heraclitus, the virtuous soul is pure and unmixed light, springing from the body as a flash of lightning darts from the cloud. But the soul that is carnal and immersed in sense, like a heavy and dank vapor, can with difficulty be kindled, and caused to raise its eyes heavenward.

All men whilst they are awake are in one common world: but each of them, when he is asleep, is in a world of his own.

The crowns of kings do not prevent those who wear them from being tormented sometimes by violent headaches.

Our nature holds so much envy and malice that our pleasure in our own advantages is not so great as our distress at others'.

... being perpetually charmed by his familiar siren, that is, by his geometry, he neglected to eat and drink and took no care of his person; that he was often carried by force to the baths, and when there he would trace geometrical figures in the ashes of the fire, and with his finger draws lines upon his body when it was anointed with oil, being in a state of great ecstasy and divinely possessed by his science.

The richest soil, if uncultivated, produces the rankest weeds.

We ought to regard books as we do sweetmeats, not wholly to aim at the pleasantest, but chiefly to respect the wholesomest; not forbidding either, but approving the latter most.