I do not sleep to let others sleep in the shade of my waking.
Secrecy is the first essential in affairs of state.
Never write a letter and never destroy one.
War is one of the scourges with which it has pleased God to afflict men.
Carry on any enterprise as if all future success depended on it.
A virtuous and well-disposed person, like a good metal, the more he is fired, the more he is fined; the more he is opposed, the more he is approved: wrongs may well try him, and touch him, but cannot imprint in him any false stamp.