“There is nothing more ancient than the truth.”

The first precept was never to accept a thing as true until I knew it as such without a single doubt

Masked, I advance.

When it is not in our power to determine what it true, we ought to follow what is most probable.

For I found myself embarrassed with so many doubts and errors that it seemed to me that the effort to instruct myself had no effect other than the increasing discovery of my own ignorance

All that is necessary to right action is right judgment, and to the best action the most correct judgment.

I desire to live in peace and to continue the life I have begun under the motto ‘to live well you must live unseen’.

Truths are more likely to have been discovered by one man than by nation

I doubt, therefore I think, therefore I am.

But what then am I? A thing that thinks. What is that? A thing that doubts, understand, affirms, denies, wills, refuses, and that also imagines and senses.

He who hid well, lived well.

Common sense is the most widely shared commodity in the world, for every man is convinced that he is well supplied with it.

One should never judge anything unless it is known

That we conduct our thoughts along different ways, and do not fix our attention on the same objects.

It is a common failing of mortals to deem the more difficult the fairer.

The reading of all good books is like conversation with the finest men of past centuries.

The will determines itself; it should not be described as blind, any more than vision should be described as deaf.

Doing a budget means learning an ancient and powerful word: NO.

It’s the blood of the ancients that runs through the veins.

It is the stars, it is the ancient stars, it is the young and everlasting stars!

Let others praise ancient times; I am glad I was born in these.

Under the shadow of your skin, I find ancient secrets. They are now the truths I crave.

What the ancients called a clever fighter is one who not only wins, but excels in winning with ease.

There is no scent so pleasant to my nostrils as that faint, subtle reek which comes from an ancient book.

In the twenty-first century, the robot will take the place which slave labor occupied in ancient civilization.