He only earns his freedom and his life Who takes them every day by storm.

A noble person attracts noble people, and knows how to hold on to them.

The art of governing is a great metier, requiring the whole man, and it is therefore not well for a ruler to have too strong tendencies for other affairs.

Our passions are the true phoenixes; when the old one is burnt out, a new one rises from its ashes.

It is quite beyond me how anyone can believe God speaks to us in books and stories. If the world does not directly reveal to us our relationship to it, if our hearts fail to tell us what we owe ourselves and others, we shall assuredly not learn it from books, which are at best designed but to give names to our errors.

How often do I lull my seething blood to rest, for you have never seen anything so unsteady, so uncertain, as this heart.

Of all thieves, fools are the worst; they rob you of time and temper.