Vices are ingredients of virtues just as poisons are ingredients of remedies. Prudence mixes and tempers them and uses them effectively against life's ills.

Luxury and excessive refinement are sure forerunners of the decadence of states, because when all individuals seek their own interests they neglect the public weal.

However evil men may be they dare not be openly hostile to virtue, and so when they want to attack it they pretend to find it spurious , or impute crimes to it.

It is easy to be wise on behalf of others than to be so for ourselves.

The desire to seem clever often keeps us from being so.

They that apply themselves to trifling matters commonly become incapable of great ones.

There is an excess both in happiness and misery above our power of sensation.