Be known for pleasing others, especially if you govern them. Ruling other has one advantage: you can do more good than anyone else.

It is a novel kind of supremacy, the best that life can offer, to have as servants by skill those who by nature are our masters.

It is a great piece of skill to know how to guide your luck even while waiting for it.

You should aim to be independent of any one vote, of any one fashion, of any one century.

Don't show off every day, or you'll stop surprising people. There must always be some novelty left over. The person who displays a little more of it each day keeps up expectations, and no one ever discovers the limits of his talent.

The passions are the humors of the mind, and the least excess sickens our judgment. If the disease spreads to the mouth, your reputation will be in danger.

The truest wild beasts live in the most populous places.