When we are dead we are praised by those who survive us, though we frequently have no other merit than that of being no longer alive.

Children enjoy the present because they have neither a past nor a future.

It is often easier as well as more advantageous to conform to other men's opinions than to bring them over to ours.

Extremes are vicious, and proceed from men; compensation is just, and proceeds from God.

It is in vain to ridicule a rich fool, for the laughers will be on his side.

That man is good who does good to others; if he suffers on account of the good he does, he is very good; if he suffers at the hands of those to whom he has done good, then his goodness is so great that it could be enhanced only by greater sufferings; and if he should die at their hands, his virtue can go no further: it is heroic, it is perfect.

Life is a kind of sleep: old men sleep longest, nor begin to wake but when they are to die.