If you don't know how to live, why wonder about death?

Study the past, if you would divine the future.

There are three things to beware of through life: when a man is young, let him beware of his appetites; when he is middle-aged, of his passions; and when old, of covetousness, especially.

When a man feels the difficulty of doing, can he be other than cautious and slow in speaking?

Don't use cannon to kill musquito.

Clever talk can confound the workings of virtue, just as small impatiences can confound great projects.

Those who are firm, enduring, simple and unpretentious are the nearest to virtue.