Reading, solitude, idleness, a soft and sedentary life, intercourse with women and young people, these are perilous paths for a young man, and these lead him constantly into danger.

It is as if my heart and my brain did not belong to the same person. Feelings come quicker than lightning and fill my soul, but they bring me no illumination; they burn me and dazzle me.

As long as there are rich people in the world, they will be desirous of distinguishing themselves from the poor.

You forget that the fruits belong to all and that the land belongs to no one.

Money is the seed of money.

O love, if I regret the age when one savors you, it is not for the hour of pleasure, but for the one that follows it.

Everything made by man may be destroyed by man; there are no ineffaceable characters except those engraved by nature; and nature makes neither princes nor rich men nor great lords.