After a tongue has once got the knack of lying, it is not to be imagined how impossible almost it is to reclaim it. Whence it comes to pass, that we see some men, who are otherwise very honest, so subject to this vice.
In my opinion it is the happy living, and not, as Antisthenes said, the happy lying, in which human happiness consists.
A young man ought to cross his own rules, to awake his vigor, and to keep it from growing faint and rusty. And there is no course of life so weak and sottish as that which is carried on by rule and discipline.
Who is only good that others may know it, and that he may be the better esteemed when ’tis known, who will do well but upon condition that his virtue may be known to men, is one from whom much service is not to be expected.
We do not correct the man we hang; we correct others by him.
Petty vexations may at times be petty, but still they are vexations. The smallest and most inconsiderable annoyances are the most piercing. As small letters weary the eye most, so the smallest affairs disturb us most.
Time steals away without any inconvenience.
Examples teach us that in military affairs, and all others of a like nature, study is apt to enervate and relax the courage of man, rather than to give strength and energy to the mind.
We wake sleeping, and sleep waking. I do not see so clearly in my sleep; but as to my being awake, I never found it clear enough and free from clouds.
It is for little souls, that truckle under the weight of affairs, not to know how clearly to disengage themselves, and not to know how to lay them aside and take them up again.
It is easier to sacrifice great than little things.
Vice leaves repentance in the soul, like an ulcer in the flesh, which is always scratching and lacerating itself; for reason effaces all other griefs and sorrows, but it begets that of repentance.
Repentance is no other than a recanting of the will, and opposition to our fancies, which lead us which way they please.
I love a friendship that flatters itself in the sharpness and vigor of its communications.
Friendship that possesses the whole soul, and there rules and sways with an absolute sovereignty, can admit of no rival.
Fortune, to show us her power in all things, and to abate our presumption, seeing she could not make fools wise, has made them fortunate.
Books are a languid pleasure.
We call comeliness a mischance in the first respect, which belongs principally to the face.
The first distinction among men, and the first consideration that gave one precedence over another, was doubtless the advantage of beauty.
If not for that of conscience, yet at least for ambition’s sake, let us reject ambition, let us disdain that thirst of honor and renown, so low and mendicant; that it makes us beg it of all sorts of people.