“One should aim not at being possible to understand, but at being impossible to misunderstand.”

Nature herself has never attempted to effect great changes rapidly.

For the mind is all the easier to teach before it is set.

That which offends the ear will not easily gain admission to the mind.

In a crowd, on a journey, at a banquet even, a line of thought can itself provide its own seclusion.

It is the nurse that the child first hears, and her words that he will first attempt to imitate.

Nothing is more dangerous to men than a sudden change of fortune.

Study depends on the goodwill of the student, a quality that cannot be secured by compulsion.

Virtue, though she gets her beginning from nature, yet receives her finishing touches from learning.

Let us never adopt the maxim, Rather lose our friend than our jest.

Though ambition in itself is a vice, yet it is often the parent of virtues.

We must form our minds by reading deep rather than wide.

While we are examining into everything we sometimes find truth where we least expected it.

It seldom happens that a premature shoot of genius ever arrives at maturity.

Vain hopes are like certain dreams of those who wake.

Forbidden pleasures alone are loved immoderately; when lawful, they do not excite desire.

Everything that has a beginning comes to an end.