Fame, they tell you, is air; but without air there is no life for any; without fame there is none for the best.

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.

When the mind loses its feeling for elegance, it grows corrupt and groveling, and seeks in the crowd what ought to be found at home.

There is no easy path leading out of life, and few are the easy ones that lie within it.

Modesty and diffidence make a man unfit for public affairs; they also make him unfit for brothels.

Falsehood is for a season.

We oftener say things because we can say them well, than because they are sound and reasonable.