Even opinion is of force enough to make itself to be espoused at the expense of life. - Michel de Montaigne

Our understanding is conducted solely by means of the word: anyone who falsifies it betrays public society. It is the only tool by which we communicate our wishes and our thoughts; it is our soul’s interpreter: if we lack that, we can no longer hold together; we can no longer know each other. When words deceive us, it breaks all intercourse and loosens the bonds of our polity.

This, reader, is an honest book...I want to appear in my simple, natural and everyday dress, without strain or artifice; for it is myself that I portray

Valor is strength, not of legs and arms, but of heart and soul; it consists not in the worth of our horse or our weapons, but in our own.