Treachery is more often the effect of weakness than of a formed design.

Silence is the best tactic for he who distrusts himself.

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

Philosophy easily triumphs over past and future ills; but present ills triumph over philosophy.

Whatever good things people say of us, they tell us nothing new.

We are easily comforted for the misfortunes of our friends, when those misfortunes give us an occasion of expressing our affection and solicitude.

It may be said that the vices await us in the journey of life like hosts with whom we must successively lodge; and I doubt whether experience would make us avoid them if we were to travel the same road a second time.