A room without books is like a life without meaning.

The best hemp and the best tobacco grow on the same kind of soil. The former article is of the first necessity to the wealth and protection of the country. The latter, never useful.

If you are obliged to neglect any thing, let it be your chemistry. It is the least useful and the least amusing to a country gentleman of all the ordinary branches of science.

If there is a gratification which I envy any people in this world it is to your country [Italy] its music. This is the favorite passion of my soul, and fortune has cast my lot in a country where it is in a state of deplorable barbarism.

Health is value greater than studying.

The difficulty is no longer to find candidates for the offices, but offices for the candidates.

It is proof of sincerity, which I value above all things; as, between those who practice it, falsehood and malice work their efforts in vain.