The state of that man’s mind who feels too intense an interest as to future events, must be most deplorable.
There is no grace in a benefit that sticks to the fingers.
We are as answerable for what we give as for what we receive; nay, the misplacing of a benefit is worse than the not receiving of it; for the one is another person’s fault, but the other is mine.
The law of the pleasure in having done anything for another is, that the one almost immediately forgets having given, and the other remembers eternally having received.
There is as much greatness of mind in the owning of a good turn as in the doing of it; and we must no more force a requital out of season than be wanting in it.
The man who has learned to triumph over sorrow wears his miseries as though they were sacred fillets upon his brow; and nothing is so entirely admirable as a man bravely wretched.
Haste trips up its own heels, fetters and stops itself.
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.
Be not dazzled by beauty, but look for those inward qualities which are lasting.