If Ihad six hours to chop down a tree, I'd spend the first hour sharpening the ax.

Talkingmuch about oneself may be a way of hiding oneself.

Everyone speaks well of his heart, but no one dares to say it of his dead.

Instinct is the nose of the mind.

Few men of action have been able to make a graceful exit at the appropriate time.

Somewherethere is a map of how it can be done.

A half-truth won for ourselves is worth more than a whole truth learned from others.

Why don'tyou want to do what you know you should do? The reason you don't is thatyou're in conflict with yourself.

We have, I fear, confused power with greatness.

A foolshows his annoyance at once, but a prudent man overlooks an insult.

The last function of reason is to recognize that there is an infinity of things which surpass it.

The exercise of power is determined by thousands ofinteractions between the world of the powerful and that of the powerless, allthe more so because these worlds are never divided by a sharp line: everyonehas a small part of himself in both.