It is a great matter to be in authority over others; for authority, if it be rightly used, will make you feared beyond your actual resources.

Even though many people prove to be ungrateful, do not let that stop you from benefiting others-for not only is beneficence in itself a noble and almost divine quality, it may also happen that while you practice it, you will encounter someone so grateful that he will make up for all the others' ingratitude.

Be careful how you do one man a pleasure which must needs occasion equal displeasure in another. For he who is thus slighted will not forget, but will think the offence to himself the greater in that another profits by it; while he who receives the pleasure will either not remember it, or will consider the favour done him less than it really was.

There is nothing so fleeting as the memory of benefits received.

Affairs that depend on many rarely succeed.

Experience has always shown, and reason also, that affairs which depend on many seldom succeed.

It is a great matter to be in authority over others; for authority, if it be rightly used, will make you feared beyond your actual resources.