Certainly, if he still has himself, a man of understanding has lost nothing.
The advantage of living is not measured by length, but by use; some men have lived long, and lived little; attend to it while you are in it. It lies in your will, not in the number of years, for you to have lived enough.
Experience has further taught me this, that we ruin ourselves by impatience.
There are no truths, only moments of claryty passing for answers.
There is more ado to interpret interpretations than to interpret things, and more books upon books than upon any other subject; we do nothing but comment upon one another. Every place swarms with commentaries; of authors there is great scarcity.
We need to interpret interpretations more than to interpret things.
When I express my opinions it is so as to reveal the measure of my sight not the measure of the thing.
To distract myself from tiresome thoughts, I have only to resort to books; they easily draw my mind to themselves and away from other things.
Wise people are foolish if they cannot adapt to foolish people.
But sure there is need of other remedies than dreaming, a weak contention of art against nature.
There is no passion so much transports the sincerity of judgment as doth anger.
The memory represents to us not what we choose but what it pleases.
Honesty is a question of right and wrong, not a matter of policy.
God defend me from being an honest man according to the description which every day I see made by each man to his own glorification.
All general judgments are loose and imperfect.
Is it not a noble farce, where kings, republics, and emperors have for so many ages played their parts, and to which the whole vast universe serves for a theatre?
Arts and sciences are not cast in a mould, but are found and perfected by degrees, by often handling and polishing.
Report followeth not all goodness, except difficulty and rarity be joined thereto.
Plenty and indigence depend upon the opinion every one has of them; and riches, like glory of health, have no more beauty or pleasure than their possessor is pleaded to lend them.
After they had accustomed themselves at Rome to the spectacles of the slaughter of animals, they proceeded to those of the slaughter of men, to the gladiators.