If one judges love by the majority of its effects, it is more like hatred than like friendship.

Humility is often only a feigned submissiveness by which men hope to bring other people to submit to them; it is a more calculated sort of pride.

Nature has concealed at the bottom of our minds talents and abilities of which we are not aware.

Everyone agrees that a secret should be kept intact, but everyone does not agree as to the nature and importance of secrecy. Too often we consult ourselves as to what we should say, what we should leave unsaid. There are few permanent secrets, and the scruple against revealing them will not last forever.

In great affairs we ought to apply ourselves less to creating chances than to profiting from those that offer.

Though nature be ever so generous, yet can she not make a hero alone. Fortune must contribute her part too; and till both concur, the work cannot be perfected.

The passions of youth are not more dangerous to health than is the lukewarmness of old age.