"Truly man is a marvelously vain, diverse, and undulating object. It is hard to found any constant in uniform judgment on him" (5).

"All passions that allow themselves to be savored and digested are only mediocre" (8-9).

"We are never at home, we are always beyond. Fear, desire, hope, project us toward the future and steal from us the feeling and consideration of what is, to busy us with what will be, even when we show no longer be" (9-10).

"And we see that the soul in its passions will sooner deceive itself by setting up a false and fantastical object, even contrary to its own belief, than not act against something" (16).

"If I can, I shall keep my death from saying anything that my life has not already said" (24).

"The soul [or mind] that has no fixed goal loses itself; for as they say, to be everywhere is to be nowhere" (24).

"But the reverse of truth has a hundred thousand shapes and a limitless field. The Pythagoreans make out the good to be certain and finite, evil infinite and uncertain. A thousand paths miss the target, one goes to it" (28).

"And how much less sociable is false speech than silence" (28).

"I have little control over myself and my moods. Chance has more power here than I. The occassion, the company, the very sound of my voice, draw more from my mind than I find in it when I sound it and use it by myself" (31).

"...in public disorders men stunned by their fate will throw themselves back, as on any superstition, on seeking in the heavens the ancient causes and threats of their misfortune" (35).

"But what gives them an especially good chance to play is the obscure, ambiguous, and fantastic language of the prophetic jargon, to which their authors give no clear meaning, so that posterity can apply to it whatever meanings it pleases" (35).

"The Peripatetic sage does not exempt himself from perturbations, but he moderates them" (37).

"It is better for me to offend him once than myself every day" (38).

"Men, says an old Greek maxim, are tormented by the opinions they have of things, not by the things themselves" (39).

"...custom and length of time are far stronger counselors than any other compulsion" (43).