Virtue would go far if vanity did not keep it company.

The most brilliant fortunes are often not worth the littleness required to gain them.

No matter how much care we put into hiding our passions under the appearances of devotion and honor, they can always be seen to peer out through these covers.

Neither love nor fire can subsist without perpetual motion; both cease to live so soon as they cease to hope, or to fear.

Vices are ingredients of virtues just as poisons are ingredients of remedies. Prudence mixes and tempers them and uses them effectively against life's ills.

You are never so easily fooled as when trying to fool someone else.

Virtues lose themselves in self-interest, as rivers in the sea.