Pity is often a reflection of our own evils in the ills of others. It is a delicate foresight of the troubles into which we may fall.

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.

Conceit causes more conversation than wit.

The shame that arises from praise which we do not deserve often makes us do things we should otherwise never have attempted.

A clever man should handle his interests so that each will fall in suitable order of their value.

Moderation is caused by the fear of exciting the envy and contempt which those merit who are intoxicated with their good fortune; it is a vain display of our strength of mind, and in short the moderation of men at their greatest height is only a desire to appear greater than their fortune.

Love has its name borrowed by a great number of dealings and affairs that are attributed to it--in which it has no greater part than the Doge in what is done at Venice.