We should not speak so that it is possible for the audience to understand us, but so that it is impossible for them to misunderstand us.

The gifts of nature are infinite in their variety, and mind differs from mind almost as much as body from body.

For it would have been better that man should have been born dumb, nay, void of all reason, rather than that he should employ the gifts of Providence to the destruction of his neighbor.

Men of quality are in the wrong to undervalue, as they often do, the practise of a fair and quick hand in writing; for it is no immaterial accomplishment.

Virtue, though she gets her beginning from nature, yet receives her finishing touches from learning.

Those who wish to appear wise among fools, among the wise seem foolish.

Consequently the student who is devoid of talent will derive no more profit from this work than barren soil from a treatise on agriculture.