The world began without man, and it will end without him.

Fate leads the willing and drags along those who hang back.

The future comes like an unwelcome guest.

He alone who owns the youth gains the future.

We must confess that at present the rich predominate, but the future will be for the virtuous and ingenious.

A change of fortune hurts a wise man no more than a change of the moon.

Often the prudent, far from making their destinies, succumb to them; it is destiny which makes them prudent.

Men are able to assist fortune but not to thwart her. They can weave her designs, but they cannot destroy them.

Not a change for the better in our human housekeeping has ever taken place that wise and good men have not opposed it—have not prophesied that the world would wake up to find its throat cut in consequence.

I don’t try to describe the future. I try to prevent it.

It would be madness, and inconsistency, to suppose that things which have never yet been performed can be performed without employing some hitherto untried means.

I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past.

Every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future.