Sometimes a lengthened period of prosperity melts away in a moment; just as the heat of summer flies before a day of tempest.
Hope deceives more men than cunning does.
Give help rather than advice.
One promises much, to avoid giving little.
He who knows how to suffer everything can dare everything.
Those who can bear all can dare all.
The law cannot equalize mankind in spite of nature.
Clearness marks the sincerity of philosophers.
The fool is like those people who think themselves rich with little.
The mind is the soul’s eye, not its source of power. That lies in the heart, in other words, in the passions.
It is a great sign of mediocrity to praise always moderately.
We must expect everything and fear everything from time and from men.
Few maxims are true in every respect.
All men are born truthful and die liars.
The mind reaches great heights only by spurts.
The heaviest object in the world is the body of the woman you have ceased to love.
If virtue were its own reward, it would no longer be a human quality, but supernatural.
Vice foments war; it is virtue which actually fights. If there were no virtue, we would live in peace forever.
The young suffer less from their own errors than from the cautiousness of the old.
We discover in ourselves what others hide from us and we recognize in others what we hide from ourselves...