We have more indolence in the mind than in the body.

We often act treacherously more from weakness than from a fixed motive.

What makes the pain we feel from shame and jealousy so cutting is that vanity can give us no assistance in bearing them.

We may sooner be brought to love them that hate us, than them that love us more than we would have them do.

We should only affect compassion, and carefully avoid having any.

Men are often so foolish as to boast and value themselves upon their passions, even those that are most vicious. But envy is a passion so full of cowardice and shame that no one every ever had the confidence to own it.

To praise princes for virtues they do not possess is to insult them without fear of consequences.