Nothing astonishes men so much as common sense and plain dealing.

The highest pleasure to be got out of freedom, and having nothing to do, is labour

Compromiseis never anything but an ignoble truce between the duty of a man and theterror of a coward.

All the power that we exercise over others depends on thepower we exercise over ourselves.

Show me a man who cannot bother to do little things andI'll show you a man who cannot be trusted to do big things.

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.

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

The onesure way to conciliate a tiger is to allow oneself to be devoured.

Ultimately, the only power to which man should aspire isthat which he exercises over himself.

Power is not a means, it is an end. One does not establisha dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolutionin order to establish the dictatorship.

Nevercut what you can untie.

Conscientious men are, almost everywhere, less encouraged than less to lerated.