The bees pillage the flowers here and there but they make honey of them which is all their own; it is no longer thyme or marjolaine: so the pieces borrowed from others he will transform and mix up into a work all his own.

Fie on the eloquence that leaves us craving itself, not things!

The secret counsels of princes are a troublesome burden to such as have only to execute them.

No one but yourself knows whether you are cowardly and cruel, or loyal and devout; others do not see you; they surmise you by uncertain conjectures; they perceive not so much your nature as your art.

We are nothing but ceremony; ceremony carries us away, and we leave the substance of things; we hang on to the branches and abandon the trunk and body.

It needs good management to enjoy life. I enjoy it twice as much as others, for the measure of enjoyment depends on the greater or less attention that we give to it...The shorter my possession of life the deeper and fuller I must make it.

All I say is by way of discourse, and nothing by way of advice. I should not speak so boldly if it were my due to be believed.