"Great ability develops and reveals itself increasingly with every new assignment."
"Even knowledge has to be in the fashion, and where it is not, it is wise to affect ignorance."
"Let him that hath no power of patience retire within himself, though even there he will have to put up with himself."
"He that can live alone resembles the brute beast in nothing, the sage in much, and God in everything."
"It is good to vary in order that you may frustrate the curious, especially those who envy you."
"It is better to sleep on things beforehand than lie awake about them afterwards."
"Nature scarcely ever gives us the very best; for that we must have recourse to art."
"Aspire rather to be a hero than merely appear one."
"Dreams will get you nowhere, a good kick in the pants will take you a long way."
"I strive to be brief, and I become obscure."
"Never do anything when you are in a temper, for you will do everything wrong."
"Attempt easy tasks as if they were difficult, and difficult as if they were easy; in the one case that confidence may not fall asleep, in the other that it may not be dismayed."
"Never open the door to a lesser evil, for other and greater ones invariably slink in after it."
"A wise man gets more use from his enemies than a fool from his friends."
"Fortune pays you sometimes for the intensity of her favors by the shortness of their duration. She soon tires of carrying any one long on her shoulders."
"A bad manner spoils everything, even reason and justice; a good one supplies everything, gilds a No, sweetens a truth, and adds a touch of beauty to old age itself."
"He that communicates his secret to another makes himself that other's slave."
"A single lie destroys a whole reputation of integrity."
"Things do not pass for what they are, but for what they seem. Most things are judged by their jackets."
"Many have had their greatness made for them by their enemies."
"At twenty a man is a peacock, at thirty a lion, at forty a camel, at fifty a serpent, at sixty a dog, at seventy an ape, at eighty a nothing at all."
"A beautiful woman should break her mirror early."
"It is better to have too much courtesy than too little, provided you are not equally courteous to all, for that would be injustice."
"The envious die not once, but as oft as the envied win applause."
"There is none who cannot teach somebody something, and there is none so excellent but he is excelled."
