Perfect Valor is to do, without a witness, all that we could do before the whole world.

To be a great man it is necessary to know how to profit by the whole of our good fortune.

The greatest part of our faults are more excusable than the methods that are commonly taken to conceal them.

Those who are condemned to death affect sometimes a constancy and contempt for death which is only the fear of facing it; so that one may say that this constancy and contempt are to their mind what the bandage is to their eyes.

Old people love to give good advice; it compensates them for their inability to set a bad example.

If one acts rightly and honestly, it is difficult to decide whether it is the effect of integrity or skill.

In infants, levity is a prettiness; in men a shameful defect; but in old age, a monstrous folly.