“It is with our passions, as it is with fire and water, they are good servants but bad masters.”

Look and see which way the wind blows before you commit yourself.

In serving the wicked, expect no reward, and be thankful if you escape injury for your pains.

Those who cry the loudest are not always the ones who are hurt the most.

Poverty with security is better than plenty in the midst of fear and uncertainty.

After all is said and done, more is said than done.

I can’t be friends with a man who blows hot and cold with the same breath.

Do nothing without regard to the consequences.

A man who looks to his friends for help will take his time about a thing.

Don’t let your special character and values, the secret that you know and no one else does, the truth – don’t let that get swallowed up by the great chewing complacency.

We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office.

Great determination can overcome most odds.

No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.

What is most truly valuable is often underrated.

Uninvited guests are often most welcome when they leave.

In critical moments even the very powerful have need of the weakest.

Outside show is a poor substitute for inner worth.

Literature is a splendid mistress, but a bad wife.

I’ve been worrying about God a little bit lately. It seems like he’s been in a bad mood. And I think it has to do with the quality of lovers he’s been getting.

And yet to every bad there is a worse.

All good novelists have bad memories. What you remember comes out as journalism; what you forget goes into the compost of the imagination.

Media is just a word that has come to mean bad journalism.

I am not a person who can really sit around and think about regrets because with every bad experience that you have, there is weirdly something good that comes from it.

Through the feigned fury of divine emotion, the wife of the great one will be badly wronged. Judges, wishing to condemn such a doctrine, the victim will be sacrificed to the ignorant people.

French people are Italian people in a bad mood.