Cardinal de Retz, Jean Francois-Paul de Gondil

Timorous minds are much more inclined to deliberate than to resolve.

Men who enter the service of the State should make it their chief study to set out in the world with some notable act which may strike the imagination of the people, and cause themselves to be discussed.

Weakness has many stages. There is a difference between feebleness by the impotency of the will, of the will to the resolution, of the resolution to the choice of means, of the choice of the means to the application.

A man who doesn't trust himself can never really trust anyone else.

Of all passions, fear weakens judgment most.

One of man's greatest failings is that he looks almost always for an excuse, in the misfortune that befalls him through his own fault, before looking for a remedy - which means he often finds the remedy too late.