The truest mark of being born with great qualities is to be born without envy.

One kind of happiness is to know exactly at what point to be miserable.

True bravery is shown by performing without witness what one might be capable of doing before all the world.

No men are oftener wrong than those that can least bear to be so.

It is necessary, in order to know things well, to know the particulars of them; and these, being infinite, make our knowledge eversuperficial and imperfect.

Nothing is more contagious than example, and no man does any exceeding good or exceeding ill but it spawns new deeds of the same kind. The good we imitate through emulation, the ill through the malignity of our nature, which shame keeps locked up, but example sets free.

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.