The wicked can have only accomplices, the voluptuous have companions in debauchery, self-seekers have associates, the politic assemble the factions, the typical idler has connections, princes have courtiers. Only the virtuous have friends.

Virtue between men is a commerce of good actions: he who has no part in this commerce must not be reckoned.

There is an astonishing imagination, even in the science of mathematics.

One should always aim at being interesting, rather than exact.

To succeed in chaining the multitude, you must seem to wear the same fetters.

We’re neither pure, nor wise, nor good; we do the best we know.

We cannot always oblige; but we can always speak obligingly.