The tranquility or agitation of our temper does not depend so much on the big things which happen to us in life, as on the pleasant or unpleasant arrangements of the little things which happen daily.

The truest comparison we can make of love is to liken it to a fever; we have no more power over the one than the other, either as to its violence or duration.

Silence is the safest policy if you are unsure of yourself.

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

A man's worth has its season, like fruit.

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.

What we cut off from our other faults is very often but so much added to our pride.