Whatever study tends neither directly nor indirectly to make us better men and citizens is at best but a specious and ingenious sort of idleness; and the knowledge we acquire by it only a creditable kind of ignorance, nothing more.

History is philosophy teaching by example and also by warning.

What Anacharsis said of the vine may aptly enough be said of prosperity. She bears the three grapes of drunkenness, pleasure, and sorrow; and happy is it if the last can cure the mischief which the former work. When afflictions fail to have their due effect, the case is desperate.

A long novitiate of acquaintance should precede the vows of friendship.

It is a very easy thing to devise good laws; the difficulty is to make them effective. The great mistake is that of looking upon men as virtuous, or thinking that they can be made so by laws; and consequently the greatest art of a politician is to render vices serviceable to the cause of virtue.

There is so much trouble in coming into the world, and so much more, as well as meanness, in going out of it, that it is hardly worth while to be here at all.

The fire of my adversity has purged the mass of my acquaintance.