Vice may be learnt, even without a teacher

Who-only let him be a man and intent upon honor-is not eager for the honorable ordeal and prompt to assume perilous duties? To what energetic man is not idleness a punishment?

Let wickedness escape as it may at the bar, it never fails of doing justice upon itself; for every guilty person is his own hangman.

No one is laughable who laughs at himself.

The great blessings of mankind are within us and within our reach; but we shut our eyes, and, like people in the dark, we fall foul upon the very thing we search for, without finding it.

Fate rules the affairs of men, with no recognizable order.

We all sorely complain of the shortness of time, and yet have much more than we know what to do with. Our lives are either spent in doing nothing at all, or in doing nothing to the purpose, or in doing nothing that we ought to do. We are always complaining that our days are few, and acting as though there would be no end of them.