Truth and reason are common to every one, and are no more his who spake them first, than his who speaks them after: 'tis no more according to Plato, than according to me, since both he and I equally see and understand them.

Bees cull their several sweets from this flower and that blossom, here and there where they find them, but themselves afterwards make the honey, which is all and purely their own, and no more thyme and marjoram: so the several fragments he borrows from others, he will transform and shuffle together to compile a work that shall be absolutely his own; that is to say, his judgment: his instruction, labour and study, tend to nothing else but to form that.
He is not obliged to discover whence he got the materials that have assisted him, but only to produce what he has himself done with them.
Men that live upon pillage and borrowing, expose their purchases and buildings to every one's view: but do not proclaim how they came by the money.

We do not see the fees and perquisites of a gentleman of the long robe; but we see the alliances wherewith he fortifies himself and his family, and the titles and honours he has obtained for him and his.

No man divulges his revenue; or, at least, which way it comes in but every one publishes his acquisitions.

The advantages of our study are to become better and more wise.