Certainly, if he still has himself, a man of understanding has lost nothing.

Men throw themselves on foreign assistances to spare their own, which, after all, are the only certain and sufficient ones.

May God defend me from myself.

From Obedience and submission comes all our virtues, and all sin is comes from self-opinion.

The worst condition of humans is when they lose knowledge and control of themselves.

To say less of yourself than is true is stupidity, not modesty. To pay yourself less than you are worth is cowardice and pusillanimity.

What fear has once made me will, I am bound still to will when without fear.

As for me, then, I love life and cultivate it just as God has been pleased to grant it to us.

If people must be talking about me, I would have it to be truthfully and justly. I would willingly return from the next world to contradict any person who described me other than I was, although he did it to honour me.