Life without the courage to die is slavery.

We should every night call ourselves to an account: What infirmity have I mastered today? What passions opposed? What temptation resisted? What virtue acquired? Our vices will abate of themselves if they be brought every day to the shrift.

Successful crime is dignified with the name of virtue; the good become the slaves of the wicked; might makes right; fear silences the power of the law.

Enjoy present pleasures in such a way as not to injure future ones.

To lose a friend is the greatest of all evils, but endeavour rather to rejoice that you possessed him than to mourn his loss.

There has not been any great talent without an element of madness. -Nullum magnum ingenium sine mixtura dementiae fuit

Dissembling profiteth nothing; a feigned countenance, and slightly forged externally, deceiveth but very few.