Duty is what goes most against the grain, because in doing that we do only what we are strictly obliged to, and are seldom much praised for it.

As riches and honor forsake a man, we discover him to be a fool, but nobody could find it out in his prosperity.

There is no road too long to the man who advances deliberately and without undue haste; there are no honors too distant to the man who prepares himself for them with patience.

At the beginning and at the end of love, the two lovers are embarrassed to find themselves alone.

A vain man finds his account in speaking good or evil of himself.

The best thing next to wit is a consciousness that it is not in us; without wit, a man might then know how to behave himself, so as not to appear to be a fool or a coxcomb.

False modesty is the masterpiece of vanity: showing the vain man in such an illusory light that he appears in the reputation of the virtue quite opposite to the vice which constitutes his real character; it is a deceit.