Waste no time with revolutions that do not remove the causes of your complaints but simply change the faces of those in charge.

We fight to great disadvantage when we fight with those who have nothing to lose.

By numberless examples it will evidently appear that human affairs are as subject to change and fluctuation as the waters of the sea agitated by the winds.

Like other men, I have sought honours and preferment, and often have obtained them beyond my wishes or hopes. Yet never have I found in them that content which I had figured beforehand in my mind. A strong reason, if we well consider it, why we should disencumber ourselves of vain desires.

Affairs that depend on many rarely succeed.

Keep your eye fixed not so much on what they [people] ought in reason to do, as on what they are likely to do based on their disposition and habits.

He who imitates what is evil always goes beyond the example that is set; on the contrary, he who imitates what is good always falls short.