Moderation is represented as a virtue in order to restrain the ambition of great men, and to console those of a meaner condition in their lesser merit and fortune.

Women know not the whole of their coquetry.

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.

There are reproaches which praise, and praises which defame.

We acknowledge that we should not talk of our wives; but we seem not to know that we should talk still less of ourselves.

He that would be a great man must learn to turn every accident to some advantage.

The cunningest dissimulation is when a man pretends to be caught in the traps others set for him; and a man is never so easily over-reached as when he is contriving to over-reach others.