Those authors are to be read at schools that supply most axioms of prudence.

To a people warlike and indigent, an incursion into a rich country is never hurtful.

He who has so little knowledge of human nature as to seek happiness by changing anything but his own disposition will waste his life in fruitless efforts.

Contempt is a kind of gangrene which, if it seizes one part of a character, corrupts all the rest by degrees.

What is easy is seldom excellent.

In the condition of men, it frequently happens that grief and anxiety lie hid under the golden robes of prosperity; and the gloom of calamity is cheered by secret radiations of hope and comfort; as in the works of nature, the bog is sometimes covered with flowers, and the mine concealed in the barren crags.

Fear is implanted in us as a preservative from evil.