Let no one trust so entirely to natural prudence as to persuade himself that it will suffice to guide him without help from experience.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

Affairs that depend on many rarely succeed.