Few things are impossible in themselves: application to make them succeed fails us more often than the means.

The judgments our enemies make about us come nearer to the truth than those we make about ourselves.

The contempt of riches in the philosophers was a concealed desire of revenging on fortune the injustice done to their merit, by despising the good she denied them.

We feel good and ill only in proportion to our self-love.

Men are not only prone to forget benefits; they even hate those who have obliged them, and cease to hate those who have injured them. The necessity of revenging an injury, or of recompensing a benefit seems a slavery to which they are unwilling to submit.

The only real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes. The glory of great men should always be measured by the means they have used to acpuire it.

He that would be a great man must learn to turn every accident to some advantage.