Telling you the truth than adore me for telling you lies.

Why should the eyes be denied what delights them most?

Flattery and deceit are the darlings of great men, and so with these men spread the butter on thick, if you want to get something out of them, otherwise you'll come home to me with a full belly and an empty purse.

Nature without exercise is a seed shut up in a pod, and art without practice is nothing.

Nothing, it appears to me, is of greater value in a man than the power of judgment; and the man who has it may be compared to a chest filled with books, for he is the son of nature and the father of art.

The art of war is like the art of the courtesan; indeed they might be called sisters, since both are slaves of desperation.

A high heart ought to bear calamities and not flee them, since in bearing them appears the grandeur of the mind and in fleeing them the cowardice of the heart.