If vices were profitable, the virtuous man would be the sinner.

Man prefers to believe what he prefers to be true.

That things are changed, and that nothing really perishes, and that the sum of matter remains exactly the same, is sufficiently certain.

The person is a poor judge who by an action can be disgraced more in failing than they can be honored in succeeding.

Riches are for spending, and spending for honor and good actions; therefore extraordinary expense must be limited by the worth of the occasion.

One always starts work with the subject, no matter how tenuous it is, and one constructs an artificial structure by which one can trap the reality of the subject-matter that one has started from.

In taking revenge, a man is but even with his enemy; but in passing it over, he is superior.