What a vile and abject thing is man if he do not raise himself above humanity.
Real improvement is of slow growth only.
It is by the benefit of letters that absent friends are in a manner brought together.
Modesty once extinguished knows not how to return.
Praise thyself never.
Some pretend want of power to make a competent return; and you shall find in others a kind of graceless modesty, that makes a man ashamed of requiting an obligation, because it is a confession that he has received one.
You find in some a sort of graceless modesty, that makes them ashamed to requite an obligation.
Philosophy alone makes the mind invincible, and places us out of the reach of fortune, so that all her arrows fall short of us.
Philosophy is the art and law of life, and it teaches us what to do in all cases, and, like good marksmen, to hit the white at any distance.
It is only luxury and avarice that make poverty grievous to us; for it is a very small matter that does our business, and when we have provided against cold, hunger, and thirst, all the rest is but vanity and excess.
Precepts are like seeds; they are little things which do much good; if the mind which receives them has a disposition, it must not be doubted that his part contributes to the generation, and adds much to that which has been collected.
Precepts are the rules by which we ought to square our lives. When they are contracted into sentences, they strike the affections; whereas admonition is only blowing of the coal.
Greatness stands upon a precipice, and if prosperity carries a man never so little beyond his poise, it overbears and dashes him to pieces.
Be not dazzled by beauty, but look for those inward qualities which are lasting.
When once ambition has passed its natural limits, its progress is boundless.
Beauty is such a fleeting blossom, how can wisdom rely upon its momentary delight?
No book can be so good, as to be profitable when negligently read.
That comes too late that comes for the asking.
To give and to lose is nothing; but to lose and to give still is the part of a great mind.
I know that nothing comes to pass but what God appoints; our fate is decreed, and things do not happen by chance, but every man’s portion of joy and sorrow is predetermined.