It is a great misfortune to be of use to nobody; scarcely less to be of use to everybody.

One should cultivate good habits of memory, for it is capable of making existence a Paradise or an Inferno.

Advice is sometimes transmitted more successfully through a joke than grave teaching.

Keep to yourself the final touches of your art.

Folly consists not in committing Folly, but in being incapable of concealing it. All men make mistakes, but the wise conceal the blunders they have made, while fools make them public. Reputation depends more on what is hidden than on what is seen. If you can’t be good, be careful.

The sage has one advantage: he is immortal. If this is not his century, many others will be.

The true way is the middle one, halfway between deserving a place and pushing oneself into it.