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

It makes me hate accepting things that are probable when they are held up before me as infallibly true. I prefer these words which tone down and modify the hastiness of our propositions: "Perhaps, In some sort, Some, They say, I think," and the like.

I speak the truth, not my fill of it, but as much as I dare speak; and I dare to do so a little more as I grow old.

I care not so much what I am to others as what I am to myself. I will be rich by myself, and not by borrowing.

It would be better to have no laws at all, than to have too many.

Report followeth not all goodness, except difficulty and rarity be joined thereto.

Valor is strength, not of legs and arms, but of heart and soul; it consists not in the worth of our horse or our weapons, but in our own.