Calumny is a monstrous vice: for, where parties indulge in it, there are always two that are actively engaged in doing wrong, and one who is subject to injury. The calumniator inflicts wrong by slandering the absent; he who gives credit to the calumny before he has investigated the truth is equally implicated. The person traduced is doubly injured--first by him who propagates, and secondly by him who credits the calumny.

Call no man happy before he dies.

The worst pain a man can have is to know much and be impotent to act.

Before a man dies, hold back and call him not happy but lucky.

The hastening of any undertaking begets error, from which great losses are wont to come.

Illness strikes men when they are exposed to change.

Happiness is not fame or riches or heroic virtues, but a state that will inspire posterity to think in reflecting upon our life, that it was the life they would wish to live.