The articulate, trained voice is more distracting than mere noise.
Nothing is so wretched or foolish as to anticipate misfortunes. What madness it is to be expecting evil before it comes.
It is easier to exclude harmful passions than to rule them, and to deny them admittance than to control them after they have been admitted.
The mind that is anxious about future events is miserable.
He that does good to another does good also to himself.
Do everything as in the eye of another.
The great pilot can sail even when his canvass is rent.
Rehearse death. To say this is to tell a person to rehearse his freedom. A person who has learned how to die has unlearned how to be a slave. He is above, or at any rate, beyond the reach of, all political powers.
The good things of prosperity are to be wished; but the good things that belong to adversity are to be admired.
It is the sign of a weak mind to be unable to bear wealth.
To the person who does not know where he wants to go there is no favorable wind.
Man’s ideal state is realized when he has fulfilled the purpose for which he is born. And what is it that reason demands of him? Something very easy-that he live in accordance with his own nature.
As the soil, however rich it may be, cannot be productive without cultivation, so the mind without culture can never produce good fruit.
Fire proves gold, adversity proves men.
What others think of us would be of little moment did it not, when known, so deeply tinge what we think of ourselves.
Ponder for a long time whether you shall admit a given person to your friendship; but when you have decided to admit him, welcome him with all your heart and soul. Speak as boldly with him as with yourself.
What a great blessing is a friend with a heart so trusty you may safely bury all your secrets in it.
There is the need for someone against which our characters can measure themselves. Without a ruler, you won’t make the crooked straight.
We should every night call ourselves to an account: What infirmity have I mastered today? What passions opposed? What temptation resisted? What virtue acquired? Our vices will abate of themselves if they be brought every day to the shrift.
He who receives a benefit with gratitude, repays the first installment of it.