“Before a man dies, hold back and call him not happy but lucky.”

If you have two loaves of bread, keep one to nourish the body, but sell the other to buy hyacinths for the soul.

Remember that with her clothes a woman puts off her modesty.

A multitude of rulers is not a good thing. Let there be one ruler, one king.

Dreams in general take their rise from those incidents which have most occupied the thoughts during the day.

Some give up their designs when they have almost reached the goal; while others, on the contrary, obtain a victory by exerting, at the last moment, more vigorous efforts than ever before.

Unless a variety of opinions are laid before us, we have no opportunity of selection, but are bound of necessity to adopt the particular view which may have been brought forward.

The man who has planned badly, if fortune is on his side, may have had a stroke of luck; but his plan was a bad one nonetheless.

Great things are won by great dangers.

Far better it is to have a stout heart always and suffer one’s share of evils, than to be ever fearing what may happen.

Good masters generally have bad slaves, and bad slaves have good masters.

Adversity has the effect of drawing out strength and qualities of a man that would have laid dormant in its absence.

Where even a falsehood must be told, let it be told.

I am bound to tell what I am told, but not in every case to believe it.

Great deeds are usually wrought at great risks.

Whatever comes from God is impossible for a man to turn back.

The man of affluence is not in fact more happy than the possessor of a bare competency, unless, in addition to his wealth, the end of his life be fortunate. We often see misery dwelling in the midst of splendour, whilst real happiness is found in humbler stations.

After you die, you wear what you are.

I don’t want a lot of strangers looking down at my wrinkles and my big fat belly when I’m dead.

Our body is a vessel of corruption; it is meant for death and for the worms, nothing more! And yet we devote ourselves to satisfying it, rather than to enriching our soul, which is so great that we can conceive nothing greater – no, nothing, nothing!

The Enemy is overcome by the blessed Passion and Death of our Lord Jesus Christ.

When I make a movie, I want it to be everything to me; like I would die for it.

Just like dust, we settle in this town.

To be fully alive, fully human, and completely awake is to be continually thrown out of the nest. To live fully is to be always in no-man’s-land, to experience each moment as completely new and fresh. To live is to be willing to die over and over again.

Everything seems to me to pass so quickly that we must concentrate on how to die rather than on how to live. How sweet it is to die if one has lived on the Cross with Christ.