Few men have been admired by their own domestics. - Michel de Montaigne

The most beautiful lives, to my mind,are those that conform to the common human pattern, with order, but without miracle, and without eccentricity.

In truth, knowledge is a great and very useful quality; those who despise it give evidence enough of their stupidity. Yet I do not set its value at that extreme measure that some attribute to it, such as the philosopher Herillus, who find in it the sovereign good and think it has the power to make us wise and happy.

Those who shake the State are easily the first to be engulfed in its destruction. The fruits of dissension are not gathered by the one who began it: he stirs and troubles the waters for other men to fish in.