The devil…the prowde spirite…cannot endure to be mocked.

One man to live in pleasure and wealth, whiles all other weap and smart for it, that is the part not of a king, but of a jailor.

It is naturally given to all men to esteem their own inventions best.

They wonder much to hear that gold which in itself is so useless a thing, should be everywhere so much esteemed, that even men for whom it was made, and by whom it has value,...

If it be a point of humanity for man to bring health and comfort to man, and especially to mitigate and assuage the grief of others, and by taking from them the sorrow and heaviness...

But what they find most amazing and despicable is the insanity of those who all but worship the rich, to whom they owe nothing and who can do them no harm; they do so for...

but in Utopia, where every man has a right to everything, they all know that if care is taken to keep the public stores full no private man can want anything; for among them there...

It is only natural, of course, that each man should think his own opinions best: the crow loves his fledgling, and the ape his cub.

For if you suffer your people to be ill-educated, and their manners to be corrupted from their infancy, and then punish them for those crimes to which their first education disposed them, what else is...

The education of youth belongs to the priests, yet they do not take so much care of instructing them in letters, as in forming their minds and manners aright; they use all possible methods to...

and, indeed, nature has so made us, that we all love to be flattered and to please ourselves with our own notions

A pretty face may be enough to catch a man, but it takes character and good nature to hold him.

The many great gardens of the world, of literature and poetry, of painting and music, of religion and architecture, all make the point as clear as possible: The soul cannot thrive in the absence of...

The Utopians wonder how any man should be so much taken with the glaring doubtful lustre of a jewel or a stone, that can look up to a star or to the sun himself; or...

Or can it be thought that they who heap up an useless mass of wealth, not for any use that it is to bring them, but merely to please themselves with the contemplation of it,...

The change of the word does not alter the matter

The most part of all princes have more delight in warlike manners and feats of chivalry than in the good feats of peace.

To tell you the truth, though, I still haven’t made up my mind whether I shall publish at all. Tastes differ so widely, and some people are so humourless, so uncharitable, and so absurdly wrong-headed,...

Pride measures prosperity not by her own advantages but by the disadvantages of others. She would not even wish to be a goddess unless there were some wretches left whom she could order about and...

For as love is oftentimes won with beauty, so it is not kept, preserved, and continued, but by virtue and obedience.

[how can anyone] be silly enough to think himself better than other people, because his clothes are made of finer woolen thread than theirs. After all, those fine clothes were once worn by a sheep,...

This lively health, when entirely free from all mixture of pain, of itself gives an inward pleasure, independent of all external objects of delight; and though this pleasure does not so powerfully affect us, nor...

Some men may be snared by beauty alone, but none can be held except by virtue and compliance.

Is not that government both unjust and ungrateful, that is so prodigal of it’s favors to those called gentlemen, or goldsmiths, or such others who are idle, or live either by flattery or by contriving...

What is deferred is not avoided.

In the first place, most princes apply themselves to the arts of war, in which I have neither ability nor interest, instead of to the good arts of peace. They are generally more set on...

Isn’t this conception of absolute justice absolutely unjust?

…if pride, that plague of human nature, that source of so much misery, did not hinder it; for this vice does not measure happiness so much by its own conveniences, as by the misery of...

Kindness and good nature unite men more effectually and with greater strength than any agreements whatsoever, since thereby the engagements of men’s hearts become stronger than the bond and obligation of words.