T is so much to be a king, that he only is so by being so. The strange lustre that surrounds him conceals and shrouds him from us; our sight is there broken and dissipated, being stopped and filled by the prevailing light.

All the world knows me in my book, and my book in me.

And to bring in a new word by the head and shoulders, they leave out the old one.

It happens as with cages: the birds without despair to get in, and those within despair of getting out.

Few men have been admired by their own domestics.

I speak truth, not so much as I would, but as much as I dare; and I dare a little the more as I grow older.

The public weal requires that men should betray and lie and massacre.

There never was in the world two opinions alike, no more than two hairs or two grains; the most universal quality is diversity.

Nature forms us for ourselves, not for others; to be, not to seem.

Is it not a noble farce, wherein kings, republics, and emperors have for so many ages played their parts, and to which the whole vast universe serves for a theatre?