“My trade and art is to live.”

“Stubborn and ardent clinging to one's opinion is the best proof of stupidity.”

“Let us permit nature to have her way. She understands her business better than we do.”

“No pleasure has any savor for me without communication.”

“There is no pleasure to me without communication: there is not so much as a sprightly thought comes into my mind that it does not grieve me to have produced alone, and that I have no one to tell it to.”

“I prefer the company of peasants because they have not been educated sufficiently to reason incorrectly.”

“There is not much less vexation in the government of a private family than in the managing of an entire state.”

“There is little less trouble in governing a private family than a whole kingdom.”

“Even from their infancy we frame them to the sports of love: their instruction, behavior, attire, grace, learning and all their words azimuth only at love, respects only affection. Their nurses and their keepers imprint no other thing in them.”

“The value of life lies not in the length of days, but in the use we make of them... Whether you find satisfaction in life depends not on your tale of years, but on your will.”

“Even from their infancy we frame them to the sports of love: their instruction, behavior, attire, grace, learning and all their words azimuth only at love, respects only affection. Their nurses and their keepers imprint no other thing in them.”

“For truly it is to be noted, that children's plays are not sports, and should be deemed as their most serious actions.”