It is a small soul, buried beneath the weight of affairs, that does not know how to get clean away from them, that cannot put them aside and pick them up again.
And therefore, Reader, I myself am the subject of my book: it is not reasonable that you should employ your leisure on a topic so frivolous and so vain. Therefore, Farewell:.
There is no knowledge so hard to acquire as the knowledge of how to live this life well and naturally.
Oh senseless man, who cannot possibly make a worm or a flea and yet will create Gods by the dozen!
In general I ask for books that make use of learning, not those that build it up.
The most profound joy has more of gravity than of gaiety in it.
Such as are in immediate fear of a losing their estates, of banishment, or of slavery, live in perpetual anguish, and lose all appetite and repose; whereas such as are actually poor, slaves, or exiles, ofttimes live as merrily as other folk.
I had rather complain of ill-fortune than be ashamed of victory.
I enjoy books as misers enjoy treasures, because I know I can enjoy them whenever I please.
Life itself is neither a good nor an evil: life is where good or evil find a place, depending on how you make it for them.
Were I to live my life over again, I should live it just as I have done. I neither complain of the past, nor do I fear the future.
Health is a precious thing, and the only one, in truth, meriting that a man should lay out not only his time, sweat, labor and goods, but also life itself to obtain it.
Wisdom has its excesses, and has no less need of moderation than folly.
Live as long as you please, you will strike nothing off the time you will have to spend dead.
Nature should have been pleased to have made this age miserable, without making it also ridiculous.
He loves little who loves by rule.
Those things that are dearest to us have cost us the most.
All I say is by way of discourse, and nothing by way of advice. I should not speak so boldly if it were my due to be believed.
All the fame you should look for in life is to have lived it quietly.
The oldest and best known evil was ever more supportable than one that was new and untried.