“I hail and caress truth in what quarter soever I find it, and cheerfully surrender myself, and open my conquered arms as far off as I can discover it; and, provided it be not too imperiously, take a pleasure in being reproved, and accommodate myself to my accusers, very often more by reason of civility than amendment, loving to gratify and nourish the liberty of admonition by my facility of submitting to it, and this even at my own expense.”

“[Folly never thinks it has enough, even when it obtains what it desires, but Wisdom is happy with what is to hand and is never vexed with itself.]3”

“for as I know only too well from experience when we lose those we love there is no consolation sweeter than the knowledge of having remembered to tell them everything and to have enjoyed the most perfect and absolute communication with them.”

“Our great and glorious masterpiece is to live appropriately.... The most certain sign of wisdom is cheerfulness.”

“Moreover, vulgar and casual opinions are something more than nothing in nature; and he who will not suffer himself to proceed so far, falls, peradventure, into the vice of obstinacy, to avoid that of superstition.”

“It is taking one's conjectures rather seriously to roast someone alive for them.”

“Folly is a bad quality; but not to be able to endure it, to fret and vex at it, as I do, is another sort of disease little less troublesome than folly itself; and is the thing that I will now accuse in myself.”

“If I converse with a strong mind and a rough disputant, he presses upon my flanks, and pricks me right and left; his imaginations stir up mine, jealousy, glory, and contention, stimulate and raise me up to something above myself; and acquiescence is a quality altogether tedious in discourse.”

“In marriage, alliances and money rightly weigh at least as much as attractiveness and beauty.”

“If the original essence of the thing which we fear could confidently lodge itself within us by its own authority it would be the same in all men. For all men are of the same species and, in varying degrees, are all furnished with the same conceptual tools and instruments of judgement.”

“Most of our desires are born and nurtured at other people's expense.”

“No passion disturbs the soundness of our judgement as anger does.”

“The greatest thing in the world is to know how to live to yourself.”

“have seen no other effects in rods but to make children’s minds more remiss or more maliciously headstrong.”

“To die of age is a rare, singular, and extraordinary death,”

“the property of Man’s wit to act readily and quickly, while the property of the judgement is to be slow and poised.”

“It is quite normal to see good intentions, when not carried out with moderation, urging men to actions which are truly vicious.”

“I would rather let affairs break their neck than twist my faith for the sake of them.”

“of countering it if that had been the only factor, since all non-rational inborn tendencies are a kind of disease which ought to be fought against.”

“That father may truly be said miserable that holdeth the affection of his children tied unto him by no other means than by the need they have of his help or want of his assistance,”

“Most of Aesop’s fables have many different levels and meanings. There are those who make myths of them by choosing some feature that fits in well with the fable. But for most of the fables this is only the first and most superficial aspect. There are others that are more vital, more essential and profound, that they have not been able to reach.”

“The other two are rich and noble; examples of virtue rarely make their home among people like that.”

“To hear men talk of metonomies, metaphors, and allegories, and other grammar words, would not one think they signified some rare and exotic form of speaking? And yet they are phrases that come near to the babble of my chambermaid. And”

“If I can, I will prevent my death from saying anything not first said by my life.”