Only a great man, believe me, and one whose excellence rises far above human failings, will not allow anything to be stolen from his own span of time, and his life is very long precisely because he has devoted to himself entirely any time that became available. None of it lay uncultivated and idle, none was under another man's control, for guarding it most jealously, he found nothing worth exchanging for his own precious time.

Wisdom allows nothing to be good that will not be so forever; no man to be happy but he that needs no other happiness than what he has within himself; no man to be great or powerful that is not master of himself.

Be wary of the man who urges an action in which he himself incurs no risk.

What narrow innocence it is for one to be good only according to the law.

It’s in the very trickery that it pleases me. But show me how the trick is done, and I have lost my interest therein.

What is required is not a lot words, but effectual ones.

I shall never be ashamed to quote a bad author if what he says is good.