Great men's honor ought always to be measured by the methods they made use of in attaining it.

Before strongly desiring anything, we should look carefully into the happiness of its present owner.

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.

People that are conceited of their own merit take pride in being unfortunate, that themselves and others may think them considerable enough to be the envy and the mark of fortune.

What makes us so often discontented with those who transact business for us is that they almost always abandon the interest of their friends for the interest of the business, because they wish to have the honor of succeeding in that which they have undertaken.

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

The violence we do to ourselves in order to remain faithful to the one we love is hardly better than an act of infidelity.