The fact is that a man who wants to act virtuously in every way necessarily comes to grief among so many who are not virtuous.

When men receive favours from someone they expected to do them ill, they are under a greater obligation to their benefactor.

For as laws are necessary that good manners be preserved, so there is need of good manners that law may be maintained.

One can make this generalization about men: they are ungrateful, fickle, liars, and deceivers, they shun danger and are greedy for profit; while you treat them well, they are yours. They would shed their blood for you, risk their property, their lives, their children, so long, as I said above, as danger is remote; but when you are in danger they turn against you.

One change always leaves the way open for the establishment of others.

Only those means of security are good, are certain, are lasting, that depend on yourself and your own vigor.

Men as a whole judge more with their eyes than with their hands.