A single lie destroys a whole reputation of integrity.

One should cultivate good habits of memory, for it is capable of making existence a Paradise or an Inferno.

Hope is a great falsifier. Let good judgment keep her in check.

A weak spirit does more harm than a weak body.

Advice is sometimes transmitted more successfully through a joke than grave teaching.

It requires as much caution to tell the truth as to conceal it.

Sometimes it proves the highest understanding not to understand

He who finds Fortune on his side should go briskly ahead, for she is wont to favor the bold.

Nature often lets us down when we most need her; let us turn to art.

One deceit needs many others, and so the whole house is built in the air and must soon come to the ground

A beautiful woman should break her mirror early

Aspire rather to be a hero than merely appear one.

A synonym is a word you use when you can’t spell the other one.

He that communicates his secret to another makes himself that other’s slave.

The greatest fool is he who thinks he is not one and all others are

It is good to vary in order that you may frustrate the curious, especially those who envy you.

The great art of giving consists in this the gift should cost very little and yet be greatly coveted, so that it may be the more highly appreciated.

Time and I against any two

It is a great art to know how to sell wind

Beauty and folly are generally companions.

The things we remember best are those better forgotten

Everything foreign is respected, partly because it comes from afar, partly because it is ready made and perfect

Fortune pays sometimes for the intensity of her favors by the shortness of their duration

Knowledge without courage is sterile.

Do not carry a spirit of contradiction, for it is to be freighted with stupidity and with peevishness, and your intelligence should plot against it; though it may well be the mark of mental genius...

Begin with another’s to end with your own.

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.

Rivalry discovers that courtesy overlooks.

I strive to be brief, and I become obscure.

Mediocrity obtains more with application than superiority without it

The pillow is a silent Sibyl, and it is better to sleep on things beforehand than lie awake about them afterwards

Evil report carries further than any applause

For a thing to remain undone nothing more is needed than to think of it done

Always leave something to wish for; otherwise you will be miserable from your very happiness.

Friendship multiplies the good of life and divides the evil.

To equal a predecessor, one must have twice they worth.

The path to greatness is along with others.

Fortunate people often have very favorable beginnings and very tragic endings. What matters isn’t being applauded when you arrive – for that is common – but being missed when you leave.

The wise does at once what the fool does at last.

Mix a little mystery with everything, for mystery arouses veneration.

Like love, courage is no joking matter. If it yields once, it will have to yield again, and again. The same difficulty will have to be conquered later on, and it would have been better...

There is always time to add a word, never to withdraw one.

It is a great piece of skill to know how to guide your luck, even while waiting for it

The truest wild beasts live in the most populous places

Great ability develops and reveals itself increasingly with every new assignment.

Die Freiheit ist kostbarer als jedes Geschenk, das dich verleiten mag, sie aufzugeben.

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 sole advantage of power is that you can do more good

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.

God Himself chasteneth not with a rod but with time.