Vice leaves, like an ulcer in the flesh, a repentance in the soul which is always scratching itself until it bleeds

Is it that we pretend to a reformation? Truly, no: but it may be we are more addicted to Venus than our fathers were. They are two exercises that thwart and hinder one another in their vigor. Lechery weakens our stomach on the one side; and on the other sobriety renders us more spruce and amorous for the exercise of love.

Valor is stability, not of legs and arms, but of courage and the soul.

Poverty of goods is easily cured; poverty of soul, impossible.

The least strained and most natural ways of the soul are the most beautiful; the best occupations are the least forced.

Though the ancient poet in Plutarch tells us we must not trouble the gods with our affairs because they take no heed of our angers and disputes, we can never enough decry the disorderly sallies of our minds.