Hold faithfulness and sincerity as first principles.

Big head, target for enemy; big heart, target for friend.

Respect the gods, but have as little to do with them as possible.

To acknowledge our faults when we are blamed, is modesty; to discover them to one's friends in ingenuousness, is confidence; but to preach them to all the world, if one does not take care, is pride.

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

He who cannot describe the problem will never find the solution to that problem.

Not to converse with a man worthy of conversation is to waste the man. To converse with a man not worthy of conversation is to waste words. The wise waste neither men nor words.