Sovereignty over any foreign land is insecure.

Philosophy's power to blunt all the blows of circumstance is beyond belief.

No man esteems anything that comes to him by chance; but when it is governed by reason, it brings credit both to the giver and receiver; whereas those favors are in some sort scandalous that make a man ashamed of his patron.

It is only the surprise and newness of the thing which makes that misfortune terrible which by premeditation might be made easy to us. For that which some people make light by sufferance, others do by foresight.

Eternal law has arranged nothing better than this, that it has given us one way in to life, but many ways out.

An old man at school is a contemptible and ridiculous object.

He is greedy of life who is not willing to die when the world is perishing around him.