How deceitful hope may be, yet she carries us on pleasantly to the end of life.

The happiness and unhappiness of men depends as much on their ethics as on fortune.

There are very few people who are not ashamed of having been in love when they no longer love each other.

Love of glory, fear of shame, greed for fortune, the desire to make life agreeable and comfortable, and the wish to depreciate others - all of these are often the causes of the bravery that is spoken so highly of by men.

There are no accidents so unlucky from which clever people are not able to reap some advantage, and none so lucky that the foolish are not able to turn them to their own disadvantage.

What we take for virtue is often but an assemblage of various ambitions and activities that chance, or our own astuteness, have arranged in a certain manner; and it is not always out of courage or purity that men are brave, and women chaste.

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