But friendship is precious, not only in the shade, but in the sunshine of life, and thanks to a benevolent arrangement the greater part of life is sunshine.

When a nation is over-reliant on one or two commodities like oil or precious minerals, corrupt government ministers and their dodgy associates hoard profits and taxes instead of properly allocating them to schools and hospitals.

There is one kind of robber whom the law does not strike at, and who steals what is most precious to men: time.

It was my father who taught me to value myself. He told me that I was uncommonly beautiful and that I was the most precious thing in his life.

The writing in this book gives us a vocabulary and a way of seeing. But ultimately, with these words resonating in our consciousness, we must turn to the book of nature itself. It matters how we think about and touch this place during our brief and precious time in the world…it can come to reside in us as surely as we reside in it.

When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive - to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love.

An excellent man, like precious metal, is in every way invariable; a villain, like the beams of a balance, is always varying, upwards and downwards.