When we are young we lay up for old age; when we are old we save for death.

It is virtue which should determine us in the choice of our friends, without inquiring into their good or evil fortune.

It is a sad thing when men have neither enough intelligence to speak well nor enough sense to hold their tongues; this is the root of all impertinence.

Grief at the absence of a loved one is happiness compared to life with a person one hates.

We meet With few utterly dull and stupid souls: the sublime and transcendent are still fewer; the generality of mankind stand between these two extremes: the interval is filled with multitudes of ordinary geniuses, but all very useful, and the ornaments and supports of the commonwealth.

Both as to high and low indifferently, men are prepossessed, charmed, fascinated by success; successful crimes are praised very much like virtue itself, and good fortune is not far from occupying the place of the whole cycle of virtues. It must be an atrocious act, a base and hateful deed, which success would not be able to justify.

There are certain things in which mediocrity is not to be endured, such as poetry, music, painting, public speaking.