If you suppress the exorbitant love of pleasure and money, idle curiosity, iniquitous pursuits and wanton mirth, what a stillness would there be in the greatest cities.

The slave has but one master, the ambitious man has as many as there are persons whose aid may contribute to the advancement of his fortunes.

High birth is a gift of fortune which should never challenge esteem towards those who receive it, since it costs them neither study nor labor.

A man is thirty years old before he has any settled thoughts of his fortune; it is not completed before fifty. He falls to building in his old age, and dies by the time his house is in a condition to be painted and glazed.

Favor exalts a man above his equals, but his dismissal from that favor places him below them.

Avoid making yourself the subject of conversation.

It is easier to enrich ourselves with a thousand virtues, than to correct ourselves of a single fault.