How can we be answerable for what we shall want in the future, since we have no clear idea of what we want now?

He who refuses praise the first time that it is offered does so because he would hear it a second time.

Nothing hinders a thing from being natural so much as the straining ourselves to make it seem so.

It is given to few persons to keep this secret well. Those who lay down rules too often break them, and the safest we are able to give is to listen much, to speak little, and to say nothing that that will ever give ground or regret.

One may outwit another, but not all the others.

When fortune surprises us by giving us some great office without having gradually led us to expect it, or without having raised our hopes, it is well nigh impossible to occupy it well, and to appear worthy to fill it.

We are all strong enough to bear other men's misfortunes.