To know the pains of power, we must go to those who have it; to know its pleasures, we must go to those who are seeking it: the pains of power are real, its pleasures imaginary.

There are two metals, one of which is omnipotent in the cabinet, and the other in the camp--gold and iron. He that knows how to apply them both may indeed attain the highest station.

Never join with your friend when he abuses his horse or his wife, unless the one is about to be sold, the other to be buried.

Ambition is to the mind what the cap is to the falcon; it blinds us first, and then compels us to tower by reason of our blindness.

The three great apostles of practical atheism, that make converts without persecuting, and retain them without preaching, are wealth, health and power.

Sloth, if it has prevented many crimes, has also smothered many virtues.

It is astonishing how much more anxious people are to lengthen life than to improve it; and as misers often lose large sums of money in attempting to make more, so do hypochondriacs squander large sums of time in search of nostrums by which they vainly hope they may get more time to squander.