We often shed tears that deceive ourselves after deceiving others.

Fortune turns all things to the advantage of those on whom she smiles.

However great the advantages given us by nature, it is not she alone, but fortune with her, which makes heroes.

A wise man thinks it more advantageous not to join the battle than to win.

We often persuade ourselves to love people who are more powerful than we are, yet interest alone produces our friendship; we do not give our hearts away for the good we wish to do, but for that we expect to receive.

It is with an old love as it is with old age a man lives to all the miseries, but is dead to all the pleasures.

The contempt of riches in philosophers was only a hidden desire to avenge their merit upon the injustice of fortune, by despising the very goods of which fortune had deprived them; it was a secret to guard themselves against the degradation of poverty, it was a back way by which to arrive at that distinction which they could not gain by riches.