The clemency of princes is very often only a state-trick, to gain upon the affections of their subjects.
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Very few people are acquainted with death. They undergo it, commonly, not so much out of resolution as custom and insensitivity; and most men ...
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We often see malefactors, when they are led to execution, put on resolution and a contempt of death which, in truth, is nothing else but feari...
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Those great and glorious actions that dazzle our eyes with their luster are represented by statesmen as the result of great wisdom and excelle...
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The breeding we give young people is ordinarily but an additional self-love, by which we make them have a better opinion of themselves.
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The whimsicalness of our own humor is a thousand times more fickle and unaccountable than what we blame so much in fortune.
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The distempers of the soul have their relapses, as many and as dangerous as those of the body; and what we take for a perfect cure is generall...
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Death and the sun are two things we cannot look on with a steady eye.
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Our concern for the loss of our friends is not always from a sense of their worth, but rather of our own need of them—and that we have lost ...
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The mind is always the dupe of the heart.
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The health of the soul is something we can be no more sure of than that of the body; and though a man may seem far from the passions, yet he i...
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There are good marriages, but no delightful ones.
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It is easier to rule others than to keep from being ruled oneself.
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