The perfect is the enemy of the good.

I was never ruined but twice: once when I lost a lawsuit, and once when I won one.

What a heavy burden is a name that has become too famous.

If one does not reflect, one thinks oneself master of everything; but when one does reflect, one realizes that one is master of nothing.

Do you think... that men have always massacred each other, as they do today? Have they always been liars, cheats, traitors, brigands, weak, flighty, cowardly, envious, gluttonous, drunken, grasping, and vicious, bloody, backbiting, debauched, fanatical, hypocritical, and silly?

The necessity of saying something, the embarrassment produced by the consciousness of having nothing to say, and the desire to exhibit ability, are three things sufficient to render even a great man ridiculous.

I know of no great men except those who have rendered great service to the human race.