A person often meets his destiny on the road he took to avoid it.
Jean de La Fontaine
Beware, so long as you live, of judging men by their outward appearance.
Rare as is true love, true friendship is rarer.
Nothing is as dangerous as an ignorant friend; a wise enemy is to be preferred.
Sadness flies away on the wings of time.
Never sell the bear's skin before one has killed the beast.
Friendship is the shadow of the evening, which increases with the setting sun of life.
Patience and time do more than strength or passion.
There is no road of flowers leading to glory.
Death never takes the wise man by surprise, he is always ready to go.
By the work one knows the workman.
Man is so made that when anything fires his soul, impossibilities vanish.
Nothing is more dangerous than a friend without discretion; even a prudent enemy is preferable.
Every flatterer lives at the expense of him who listens to him.
I bend and do not break.
Anyone entrusted with power will abuse it if not also animated with the love of truth and virtue, no matter whether he be a prince, or one of the people.
It is a double pleasure to deceive the deceiver.
Better a living beggar than a buried emperor.
The argument of the strongest is always the best.
It is twice the pleasure to deceive the deceiver.
It is impossible to please all the world and one's father.
Dressed in the lion's skin, the ass spread terror far and wide.
Be advised that all flatterers live at the expense of those who listen to them.
Everyone believes very easily whatever they fear or desire.
Neither wealth or greatness render us happy.
People must help one another; it is nature's law.
One returns to the place one came from.
People who make no noise are dangerous.
A hungry stomach cannot hear.
In short, Luck's always to blame.
But the shortest works are always the best.
Help thyself and Heaven will help thee.
Everyone calls himself a friend, but only a fool relies on it; nothing is commoner than the name, nothing rarer than the thing.
We read on the foreheads of those who are surrounded by a foolish luxury, that fortune sells what she is thought to give.
Every journalist owes tribute to the evil one.
There is nothing useless to men of sense.
A pessimist and an optimist, so much the worse; so much the better.
Rather suffer than die is man's motto.
Luck's always to blame.
Everyone has his faults which he continually repeats: neither fear nor shame can cure them.
The fastidious are unfortunate; nothing satisfies them.
The strongest passion is fear.
We must laugh before we are happy, for fear we die before we laugh at all.
We like to see others, but don't like others to see through us.
Let ignorance talk as it will, learning has its value.
One often has need of one, inferior to himself.
