The ultimate end...is not knowledge, but action. To be half right on time may be more important than to obtain the whole truth too late.

All that we do is done with an eye to something else.

Even the best of men in authority are liable to be corrupted by passion. We may conclude then that the law is reason without passion, and it is therefore preferable to any individual.

Friends are much better tried in bad fortune than in good.

It is not enough to win a war; it is more important to organize the peace.

We, on the other hand, must take for granted that the things that exist by nature are, either all or some of them, in motion.

A man who examines each subject from a philosophical standpoint cannot neglect them: he has to omit nothing, and state the truth about each topic.