Nature without learning is like a blind man; learning without Nature, like a maimed one; practice without both, incomplete. As in agriculture a good soil is first sought for, then a skilful husbandman, and then good seed; in the same way nature corresponds to the soil, the teacher to the husbandman, precepts and instruction to the seed.

A Roman divorced from his wife, being highly blamed by his friends, who demanded, "Was she not chaste? Was she not fair? Was she not fruitful?" holding out his shoe, asked them whether it was not new and well made. "Yet," added he, "none of you can tell where it pinches me.''

Courage and wisdom are, indeed, rarities amongst men, but of all that is good, a just man it would seem is the most scarce.

Custom is almost a second nature.

To be ignorant of the lives of the most celebrated men of antiquity is to continue in a state of childhood all our days.

Courage consists not in hazarding without fear; but being resolutely minded in a just cause.

The usual disease of princes, grasping covetousness, had made them suspicious and quarrelsome neighbors.