Not a soul takes thought how well he may live- only how long: yet a good life might be everybody’s, a long one can be nobody’s.
We are wrong in looking forward to death: in great measure it’s past already.
Certain laws have not been written, but they are more fixed than all the written laws.
Remember, not one penny can we take with us into the unknown land.
This is the law of benefits between men; the one ought to forget at once what was given, and the other ought never to forget what he has received.
It is sometimes pleasant even to act like a madman.
Our life’s a moment and less than a moment, but even this mite nature has mockingly humored with some appearance of a longer span.
The physician cannot prescribe by letter, he must feel the pulse.
Obedience is yielded more readily to one who commands gently.
No one’s so old that he mayn’t with decency hope for one more day.
Pleasure dies at the very moment when it charms us most.
No one loves his country for its size or eminence, but because it’s his own.
It is expedient for the victor to wish for peace restored; for the vanquished it is necessary.
Let us not seek our disease out of ourselves; ’tis in us, and planted in our bowels; and the mere fact that we do not perceive ourselves to be sick, renders us more hard to be cured.
Slavery holds few men fast; the greater number hold fast their slavery.
Whoever has nothing to hope, let him despair of nothing.
Happy he whoe’er, content with the common lot, with safe breeze hugs the shore, and, fearing to trust his skiff to the wider sea, with unambitious oar keeps close to the land.
Unfamiliarity lends weight to misfortune, and there was never a man whose grief was not heightened by surprise.
It is sweet to mingle tears with tears; Griefs, where they wound in solitude, Wound more deeply.
Light griefs do speak, while sorrow’s tongue is bound.