"Labour not after riches first, and think thou afterwards wilt enjoy them. He who neglecteth the present moment, throweth away all that he hath. As the arrow passeth through the heart, while the warrior knew not that it was coming; so shall his life be taken away before he knoweth that he hath it."

"Love to his soul gave eyes; he knew things are not as they seem. The dream is his real life; the world around him is the dream."

"No wind serves him who addresses his voyage to no certain port."

"Make your educational laws strict and your criminal ones can be gentle; but if you leave youth its liberty you will have to dig dungeons for ages."

"It is good to rub and polish our brain against that of others."

"It is not death, it is dying that alarms me."

"In true education, anything that comes to our hand is as good as a book: the prank of a page-boy, the blunder of a servant, a bit of table talk— they are all part of the curriculum."

"It is the mind that maketh good or ill, That maketh wretch or happy, rich or poor."

"It should be noted that children at play are not playing about; their games should be seen as their most serious-minded activity."

"Not being able to govern events, I govern myself."

"The world is but a perpetual see-saw."

"In plain truth, lying is an accursed vice. We are not men, nor have any other tie upon another, but by our word."

"He who is not sure of his memory, should not undertake the trade of lying."

"I care not so much what I am to others as what I am to myself. I will be rich by myself, and not by borrowing."

"He who fears he shall suffer, already suffers what he fears."

"I do myself a greater injury in lying than I do him of whom I tell a lie."

"Fortune, seeing that she could not make fools wise, has made them lucky."

"Hath God obliged himself not to exceed the bounds of our knowledge?"

"I know well what I am fleeing from but not what I am in search of."

"He who establishes his argument by noise and command shows that his reason is weak."

"Don't discuss yourself, for you are bound to lose; if you belittle yourself, you are believed; if you praise yourself, you are disbelieved."

"Even from their infancy we frame them to the sports of love: their instruction, behavior, attire, grace, learning and all their words azimuth only at love, respects only affection. Their nurses and their keepers imprint no other thing in them."

"Death, they say, acquits us of all obligations."

"Fame and tranquility can never be bedfellows."

"Courtesy is a science of the highest importance. It is, like grace and beauty in the body, which charm at first sight, and lead on to further intimacy and friendship, opening a door that we may derive instruction from the example of others, and at the same time enabling us to benefit them by our example, if there be anything in our character worthy of imitation."

"Fashion is the science of appearances, and it inspires one with the desire to seem rather than to be."

"I prefer the company of peasants because they have not been educated sufficiently to reason incorrectly."

"Covetousness is both the beginning and the end of the devil's alphabet— the first vice in corrupt nature that moves, and the last which dies."

"A wise man sees as much as he ought, not as much as he can"

"Age imprints more wrinkles in the mind than it does on the face."

"A good marriage would be between a blind wife and a deaf husband."

"Ambition is not a vice of little people."

"The diversity of physical arguments and opinions embraces all sorts of methods."

"I have ever loved to repose myself, whether sitting or lying, with my heels as high or higher than my head."

"An untempted woman cannot boast of her chastity."

"I, who have so much and so universally adored this [greek], "excellent mediocrity," 32 of ancient times, and who have concluded the most moderate measure the most perfect, shall I pretend to an unreasonable and prodigious old age?"

"I have here only made a nosegay of culled flowers, and have brought nothing of my own but the thread that ties them together."

"Amongst so many borrowed things, I am glad if I can steal one, disguising and altering it for some new service."

"I am further of opinion that it would be better for us to have [no laws] at all than to have them in so prodigious numbers as we have."

"The worst of my actions or conditions seem not so ugly unto me as I find it both ugly and base not to dare to avouch for them."

"For truth itself has not the privilege to be spoken at all times and in all sorts."

"Confidence in another man's virtue is no light evidence of a man's own, and God willingly favors such a confidence."

"If you don't know how to die, don't worry; Nature will tell you what to do on the spot, fully and adequately. She will do this job perfectly for you; don't bother your head about it."

"My appetite comes to me while eating."

"There is no man so good, who, were he to submit all his thoughts and actions to the laws, would not deserve hanging ten times in his life."

"Not because Socrates said so,… I look upon all men as my compatriots."

"Saturninus said, "Comrades, you have lost a good captain to make him an ill general.""

"I moreover affirm that our wisdom itself, and wisest consultations, for the most part commit themselves to the conduct of chance."

"What if he has borrowed the matter and spoiled the form, as it oft falls out?"