Ambition is but avarice on stilts, and masked. God sometimes sends a famine, sometimes a pestilence, and sometimes a hero, for the chastisement of mankind; none of them surely for our admiration.

Kings play at war unfairly with republics; they can only lose some earth, and some creatures they value as little, while republics lose in every soldier a part of themselves.

Solitude is the audience-chamber of God.

Ambition does not see the earth she treads on: The rock and the herbage are of one substance to her.

Wrong is but falsehood put in practice.

We cannot conquer fate and necessity, yet we can yield to them in such a manner as to be greater than if we could.

The flame of anger, bright and brief, sharpens the barb of love.