Most men ebb and flow in wretchedness between the fear of death and the hardship of life; they are unwilling to live, and yet they do not know how to die.
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He who boasts of his descent, praises the deed of another.
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There is nothing more despicable than an old man who has no other proof than his age to offer of his having lived long in the world.
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He who has injured thee was stronger or weaker than thee. If weaker, spare him; if stronger, spare thyself.
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No evil is without its compensation. The less money, the less trouble; the less favor, the less envy. Even in those cases which put us out of wits, it is not the loss itself, but the estimate of the loss that troubles us.
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Leisure without literature is death and burial alive.
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He who repents of having sinned is almost innocent.
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Remove severe restraint and what will become of virtue?
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Calamity is virtue's opportunity.
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The pleasures of the palate deal with us like the Egyptian thieves, who strangle those whom they embrace.
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No one is better born than another, unless they are born with better abilities and a more amiable disposition.
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It is the superfluous things for which men sweat.
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Freedom is not being a slave to any circumstance, to any constraint, to any chance; it means compelling Fortune to enter the lists on equal terms.
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There are no greater wretches in the world than many of those whom people in general take to be happy.
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As for old age, embrace and love it. It abounds with pleasure if you know how to use it. The gradually declining years are among the sweetest in a man's life, and I maintain that, even when they have reached the extreme limit, they have their pleasure still.
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It's the admirer and the watcher who provoke us to all the inanities we commit.
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Many shed tears merely for show, and have dry eyes when no one's around to observe them.
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The road to learning by precept is long, but by example short and effective.
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If you sit in judgment, investigate, if you sit in supreme power, sit in command.
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We all sorely complain of the shortness of time, and yet have much more than we know what to do with. Our lives are either spent in doing nothing at all, or in doing nothing to the purpose, or in doing nothing that we ought to do. We are always complaining that our days are few, and acting as though there would be no end of them.
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Conversation has a kind of charm about it, an insinuating and insidious something that elicits secrets just like love or liquor.
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The sun also shines on the wicked.
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Who can hope for nothing, should despair for nothing.
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So enjoy present pleasures as to not mar those to come.
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Authority founded on injustice is never of long duration.
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Disease is not of the body but of the place.
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Whenever you hold a fellow creature in distress, remember that he is a man.
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Whatever has overstepped its due bounds is always in a state of instability.
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If you live according to the dictates of nature, you will never be poor; if according to the notions of man, you will never be rich.
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The final hour when we cease to exist does not itself bring death; it merely of itself completes the death-process. We reach death at that moment, but we have been a long time on the way.
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