“Good fortune is the greatest of blessings, but good counsel comes next, and the lack of it destroys the other also.”

You cannot have a proud and chivalrous spirit if your conduct is mean and paltry; for whatever a man’s actions are, such must be his spirit.

Close alliances with despots are never safe for free states.

The readiest and surest way to get rid of censure, is to correct ourselves.

The more able a man is, if he make ill use of his abilities, the more dangerous will he be to the commonwealth.

To remind a man of the good turns you have done him is very much like a reproach.

The best protection for the people is not necessarily to believe everything people tell them.

What a man wishes, he will believe.

Whatever shall be to the advantage of all, may that prevail!

There is a great deal of wishful thinking in such cases it is the easiest thing of all to deceive ones self.

Every advantage in the past is judged in the light of the final issue.

Small opportunities often presage great enterprises.

One believes in what one wants to believe in.

Success has a great tendency to conceal and throw a veil over the evil deeds of men.

He who confers a favor should at once forget it, if he is not to show a sordid ungenerous spirit. To remind a man of a kindness conferred and to talk of it, is little different from reproach.

Everything great is not always good, but all good things, are great.

It is the natural disposition of all men to listen with pleasure to abuse and slander of their neighbour, and to hear with impatience those who utter praises of themselves.

Misfortunes cannot suffice to make a fool into an intelligent man.

The woman who can create her own job is the woman who will win fame and fortune.

As material fortune is associated with the properties of the body, so honor belongs to those of the soul.

Rejoicing in ordinary things is not sentimental or trite. It actually takes guts. Each time we drop our complaints and allow everyday good fortune to inspire us, we enter the warrior’s world.

Diligence is the mother of good fortune, and idleness, its opposite, never brought a man to the goal of any of his best wishes.

The phoenix hope, can wing her way through the desert skies, and still defying fortune’s spite; revive from ashes and rise.

The brave man carves out his fortune, and every man is the sum of his own works.

Fame and fortune does not mean anything if you don’t have a happy home.