True merit does not depend on the times or on fashion. Those who have no other advantage than courtly manners lose it when they are away from court. But good sense, knowledge, and wisdom make their possessors knowledgeable and beloved in all ages and in all times.

It is a very common failing, never to be pleased with our fortune nor displeased with our character.

Sometimes we praise the way things used to be in order to blame the present, and we esteem what is no longer in order to scorn what is.

It is such a great fault to talk too much that, in business and conversation, if what is good is also brief, it is doubly good, and one gains by brevity what one often loses by an excess of words.

Although most friendships that exist do not merit the name, we can nevertheless make use of them in accordance with our needs, as a kind of commercial venture based on uncertain foundations and in which we are very often deceived.

There are people so blind and self-absorbed in all matters that they always believe that, whatever they desire or think, they can impose their will on other people. Whatever bad reason they use to persuade others, these self-centered people are so caught up in the process that it seems to them all they have to do is to speak their wishes in a lofty and commanding tone of voice in order to convince everybody.

Just as there is no action weaker or more unreasonable than to submit one's judgment to another's, where there is no advantage to oneself, so also there is nothing greater or wiser than to place oneself unquestioningly under God's judgment by believing in every word He speaks.