Perfect numbers like perfect men are very rare.

My third maxim was to try always to conquer myself rather than fortune, and to change my desires rather than the order of the world, and generally to accustom myself to believing that there is nothing entirely in our power except our thoughts, so that after we have done our best regarding things external to us, everything in which we do not succeed is for us absolutely impossible.

Instead I ought to be grateful to Him who never owed me anything for having been so generous to me, rather than think that He deprived me of those things or has taken away from me whatever He did not give me.

A state is better governed which has few laws, and those laws strictly observed.

And thereby make ourselves, as it were, the lords and masters of nature.

Before examining this more carefully and investigating its consequences, I want to dwell for a moment in the contemplation of God, to ponder His attributes in me, to see, admire, and adore the beauty of His boundless light, insofar as my clouded insight allows. Believing that the supreme happiness of the other life consists wholly of the contemplation of divine greatness, I now find that through less perfect contemplation of the same sort I can gain the greatest joy available in this life.

De omnibus dubitandum