A single lie destroys a whole reputation of integrity.

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.

Don’t take the wrong side in an argument just because your opponent has taken the right side

True knowledge lies in knowing how to live

A man of honour should never forget what he is because he sees what others are.

To be at ease is better than to be at business. Nothing really belongs to us but time, which even he has who has nothing else.

Work is the price which is paid for reputation

He that can live alone resembles the brute beast in nothing, the sage in much, and God in everything.

Nature and art: The material and the workmanship. There is no beauty unaided, no excellence that does not sink to the barbarous, unless saved by art: It redeems the bad and perfects the good. Because...

Wise men appreciate all men, for they see the good in each and know how hard it is to make anything good

It is a great deed to leave nothing for tomorrow.

Know or listen to those who know.

Never open the door to the lesser evil, for other and greater ones invariably slink in after it.

All that really belongs to us is time; even he who has nothing else has that.

Watchfulness is the only guard against cunning. Be intent on his intentions. Many succeed in making others do their own affairs, and unless you possess the key to their motives you may at any moment...

True friendship multiplies the good in life and divides its evils. Strive to have friends, for life without friends is like life on a desert island..to find one real friend in a lifetime is good...

Things do not pass for what they are, but for what they seem. Most things are judged by their jackets.

At twenty the will rules, At thirty the intellect, At forty the judgment

Those who insist on the dignity of their office show they have not deserved it.

We have eyelids but not earlids, for the ears are the portals of learning, and Nature wanted to keep them wide open.

Do not show your wounded finger, for everything will knock up against it.

Chance has something to say in everything, even how to write a good letter

Never contend with a man who has nothing to lose.

Don’t show off every day, or you’ll stop surprising people. There must always be some novelty left over. The person who displays a little more of it each day keeps up expectations, and no one...

It is better to sleep on things beforehand than lie awake about them afterwards.

Hope has a good memory, gratitude a bad one.

Nothing arouses ambition so much in the heart as the trumpet-clang of another’s fame.

Never compete with someone who has nothing to lose.

Never have a companion that casts you in the shade.

Let the first impulse pass, wait for the second.

We often have to put up with most from those on whom we most depend.

Harness the imagination: Sometimes curbing her, sometimes giving her rein, for she is the whole of happiness. She sets to rights even the understanding. She sinks to tyranny, not satisfied with mere faith, but demanding...

The greatest wisdom often consists in ignorance.

Never participate in the secrets of those above you; you think you share the fruit, and you share the stones – the confidence of a prince is not a grant, but a tax

True knowledge lies in knowing how to live.

There is none who cannot teach somebody something, and there is none so excellent but he is excelled.

When desire dies, fear is born.

Have friends. ‘Tis a second existence.

Señal de tener gastada la fama propia es cuidar de la infamia ajena.