Prosperity asks for fidelity; adversity exacts it.

The spirit in which a thing is given determines that in which the debt is acknowledged; it's the intention, not the face-value of the gift, that's weighed.

A favor is to a grateful man delightful always; to an ungrateful man only once.

Solitude and company may be allowed to take their turns: the one creates in us the love of mankind, the other that of ourselves; solitude relieves us when we are sick of company, and conversation when we are weary of being alone, so that the one cures the other. There is no man so miserable as he that is at a loss how to use his time

Before old age I took care to live well; in old age I take care to die well; but to die well is to die willingly.

It is the practice of the multitude to bark at eminent men, as little dogs do at strangers.

Anger is like those ruins which smash themselves on what they fall.