Virtue cannot be followed but for herself, and if one sometimes borrows her mask to some other purpose, she presently pulls it away again.

It is commonly seene by experience, that excellent memories do rather accompany weake judgements.

While our pulse beats and we feel emotion, let us put off the business. Things will truly seem different to us when we have quieted and cooled down. It is passion that is in command at first, it is passion that speaks, it is not we ourselves.

One should be ever booted and spurred and ready to depart.

The art of dining well is no slight art, the pleasure not a slight pleasure; neither the greatest captains nor the greatest philosophers have disdained the use or science of eating well.

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

Death, they say, acquits us of all obligations.