The intellect believes naturally, and the will loves naturally, so that for lack of true objects, they must needs attach themselves to the false.
Eritis sicut dii, scientes bonum et malum.—Every one plays the god in judging whether anything be good or bad, and in being too much afflicted or rejoiced at circumstances.
Even if people have no interest in what they say, it must not therefore be certainly concluded they are not lying, for there are those who lie simply for lying's sake.
Men are of necessity so mad, that not to be mad were madness in another form.
We cannot think of Plato and Aristotle, save in professorial robes. They were honest men like others, laughing with their friends, and when they amused themselves with writing the Laws or the Politics, they did it as a pastime. That part of their life was the least philosophic and the least serious; the most philosophic was to live simply and quietly. If they wrote on politics it was as though they were laying down rules for a madhouse, and if they made as though they were speaking of a great matter, it was because they knew that the madmen to whom they spoke fancied themselves kings and emperors. They entered into their views in order to make their folly as little harmful as possible.
The most important affair in life is the choice of a trade, yet chance decides it. Custom makes men masons, soldiers, tilers. "He is a good tiler," says one, "and soldiers are fools." But others: "There is nothing great but war, all but soldiers are rogues." We choose our professions according as we hear this or that praised or despised in our childhood, for we naturally love truth and hate folly. These words move us, the only fault is in their application. So great is the force of custom that out of those who by nature are only men, are made all conditions of men. For some countries are full of masons, others of soldiers, etc. Nature is certainly not so uniform. Custom then produces this effect and gains ascendency over nature, yet sometimes nature gets the upper hand, and obliges man to act by instinct in spite of all custom, whether good or bad.
Men by nature are tilers and of all callings, except in their own closets.
We never teach men to be gentlemen, but we teach them everything else, and they never pique themselves so much on all the rest as on knowing how to be gentlemen. They pique themselves only on knowing the one thing they have not learnt.
People should not be able to say of a man, he is a mathematician, or a preacher, or eloquent, but he is a gentleman; that universal quality alone pleases me.—When you think of a man's book as soon as you see himself, it is a bad sign. I would rather that none of his qualities should be recognised till you meet them, or have occasion to avail yourself of them. Ne quid nimis, for fear some one quality gain the mastery and stamp the man. Let not people think of him as an orator, unless oratory be in question, then let them think of it.