According to true military art, one should never push one's enemy to the point of despair, because such a state multiplies his strength and increases his courage which had already been crushed and failing, and because there is no better remedy for the health of beaten and overwhelmed men than the absence of all hope.

Tell the truth and shame the devil.

Oh how unhappy is the prince served by such men who are so easily corrupted.

The remedy for thirst? It is the opposite of the one for a dog bite: run always after a dog, he'll never bite you; drink always before thirst, and it will never overtake you.

It is better to write of laughter than of tears, for laughter is the property of man.

Gestures, in love, are incomparably more attractive, effective and valuable than words.

If you say to me: "Master, it would seem that you weren't too terribly wise to have written these bits of nonsense and pleasant mockeries," I respond that you are hardly more so in finding amusement in reading them.