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

If you attempt certain things at the right time, they are easy to accomplish - in fact, they almost get done by themselves. If you undertake them before the time is right, not only will they fail, but they will often become impossible to accomplish even when the time would have been right.

The affairs of this world are so shifting and depend on so many accidents, that it is hard to form any judgment concerning the future; nay, we see from experience that the forecasts even of the wise almost always turn out false.

He is less likely to be mistaken who looks forward to a change in the affairs of the world than he who regards them as firm and stable.

Since there is nothing so well worth having as friends, never lose a chance to make them.

To relinquish a present good through apprehension of a future evil is in most instances unwise ... from a fear which may afterwards turn out groundless, you lost the good that lay within your grasp.

To give vent now and then to his feelings, whether of pleasure or discontent, is a great ease to a man's heart.