Never let pride or concern for your reputation pull you farther into the morass; both will suffer far greater blows by your persistence.

We admire the bold and prefer to be around them because their self-confidence infects us.

It is almost wiser to crush your enemy. If they plot revenge years later, do not let your guard down, but simply crush them again.

To reveal the true nature of your intelligence rarely pays; you should get in the habit of downplaying it at all times.

The goal of an apprenticeship is not money, a good position, a title, or a diploma, but rather the transformation of your mind and character - the first transformation on the way to mastery.

Understand the superior value of getting what you want through hard work.

You must practice and develop boldness. You will often find uses for it.

Beware of people who hide behind a façade of vague abstractions and impartiality: no one is impartial.

Never try to seduce someone who is of your own type. You will be like two puzzles missing the same parts.

Having a brush with death, or being reminded in a dramatic way of the shortness of our lives, can have a positive, therapeutic effect. Our days are numbered and so it is best to make every moment count, to have a sense of urgency about life.

The harder we try to fix our mistakes, the worse we often make them.

Look to the end, no matter what it is you are considering. Often enough, God gives a man a glimpse of happiness, and then utterly ruins him

Great strategists do not act according to preconceived ideas; they respond to the moment like children. Their minds are always moving, and they are always excited and curious. They quickly forget the past - the present is much too interesting.

Your eyes must be on the larger trends that govern events, on that which is not immediately visible. Never lose sight of your long-term goals. With an elevated perspective, you will have the patience and clarity to reach almost any objective.

Without war human beings stagnate in comfort and affluence and lose the capacity for great thoughts and feelings, they become cynical and subside into barbarism. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Knowledge, experience, and theory have limitations: no amount of thinking in advance can prepare you for the chaos of life, for the infinite possibilities of the moment.

Now is the time to stop drifting and wake up—to assess yourself, the people around you, and the direction in which you are headed in as cold and brutal a light as possible. Without fear.

'Of all the disorders of the soul, envy is the only one no one confesses to.' - Plutarch