“Posterity allows to every man his true value and proper honours.”

Valor is of no service, chance rules all, and the bravest often fall by the hands of cowards.

Power acquired by guilt was never used for a good purpose.

Christianity is a pestilent superstition.

An honorable death is better than a dishonorable life.

A woman once fallen will shrink from no impropriety.

Indeed, the crowning proof of their valour and their strength is that they keep up their superiority without harm to others.

It is the nature of the human disposition to hate him whom you have injured.

Reason and calm judgment, the qualities specially belonging to a leader.

We extol ancient things, regardless of our own times. [Lat., Vetera extollimus recentium incuriosi.]

The powerful hold in deep remembrance an ill-timed pleasantry. [Lat., Facetiarum apud praepotentes in longum memoria est.]

War will of itself discover and lay open the hidden and rankling wounds of the victorious party.

[That form of] eloquence, the foster-child of licence, which fools call liberty. [Lat., Eloquentia, alumna licentiae, quam stulti libertatem vocabant.]

Necessity reforms the poor, and satiety reforms the rich.

Perdomita Britannia et statim omissa. Britain was conquered and immediately lost.

In seasons of tumult and discord bad men have most power; mental and moral excellence require peace and quietness.

It is more reverent to believe in the works of the Deity than to comprehend them.

I think the problem with people, as they start to mature, they say, ‘Rap is a young man’s game,’ and they keep trying to make young songs. But you don’t know the slang – it changes every day, and you’re just visiting. So you’re trying to be something you’re not, and the audience doesn’t buy into that.

It’s dogged as does it. It ain’t thinking about it.

Every faction conditions its members to think and act a certain way. And most people do it. For most people, it’s not hard to learn, to find a pattern of thought that works and stay that way. But our minds move in a dozen different directions.

Fancy thinking the Beast was something you could hunt and kill! You knew, didn’t you? I’m part of you? Close, close, close! I’m the reason why it’s no go? Why things are what they are?

Above all else, never think you’re not good enough.

We would not think them so beautiful if they did not fly, or if they flew straight and briskly like bees, or if they stung, or above all if they did not enact the perturbing mystery of metamorphosis: the latter assumes in our eyes the value of a badly decoded message, a symbol, a sign.

I think more women should be involved in politics for the good of the human race.

I think we ripple on into others, just like a stone puts its ripples into a brook. That, for me, too, is a source of comfort. It kind of, in a sense, negates the sense of total oblivion.