I am one of those who hold that poetry is never so blithe as in a wanton and irregular subject.
Great authors, when they write about causes, adduce not only those they think are true but also those they do not believe in, provided they have some originality and beauty. They speak truly and usefully enough if they speak ingeniously.
Other passions have objects to flatter them, and seem to content and satisfy them for a while; there is power in ambition, pleasure in luxury, and pelf in covetousness; but envy can gain nothing but vexation.
Fie on the eloquence that leaves us craving itself, not things!
Lay a beam between these two towers of such width as we need to walk on: there is no philosophical wisdom of such great firmness that it can give us courage to walk on it as we should if it were on the ground.
And truly Philosophy is but sophisticated poetry. Whence do those ancient writers derive all their authority but from the poets?
The beginnings of all things are weak and tender. We must therefore be clear-sighted in the beginnings, for, as in their budding we discern not the danger, so in their full growth we perceive not the remedy.
Men throw themselves on foreign assistances to spare their own, which, after all, are the only certain and sufficient ones.
We feel a kind of bittersweet pricking of malicious delight in contemplating the misfortunes of others.
I look upon the too good opinion that man has of himself, as the nursing mother of all false opinions, both public and private.
No pleasure is fully delightful without communications, and no delight absolute except imparted.
The wise man should withdraw his soul within, out of the crowd, and keep it in freedom and power to judge things freely; but as for externals, he should wholly follow the accepted fashions and forms.
Only the fools are certain and assured.
The secret counsels of princes are a troublesome burden to such as have only to execute them.
As for me, then, I love life and cultivate it just as God has been pleased to grant it to us.
If I can, I shall keep my death from saying anything that my life has not already said.
And if nobody reads me, shall I have wasted my time, when I have beguiled so many idle hours with such pleasant and profitable reflections?
There is no virtue which does not rejoice a well-descended nature; there is a kind of I know not what congratulation in well-doing, that gives us an inward satisfaction, and a certain generous boldness that accompanies a good conscience.
I, who am king of the matter I treat, and who owe an accounting for it to no one, do not for all that believe myself in all I write. I often hazard sallies of my mind which I mistrust.
I do not correct my first imaginings by my second – well, yes, perhaps a word or so, but only to vary, not to delete. I want to represent the course of my humors and I want people to see each part at its birth.