What is the life of man! Is it not to shift from side to side? From sorrow to sorrow? To button up one cause of vexation! And unbutton another!

People who are always taking care of their health are like misers, who are hoarding a treasure which they have never spirit enough to enjoy.

I am persuaded that every time a man smiles - but much more so when he laughs - it adds something to this fragment of life.

The desire of knowledge, like the thirst of riches, increases ever with the acquisition of it.

I wish either my father or my mother, or indeed both of them, as they were in duty both equally bound to it, had minded what they were about when they begot me.

Only the brave know how to forgive; it is the most refined and generous pitch of virtue human nature can arrive at.

Lessons of wisdom have the most power over us when they capture the heart through the groundwork of a story, which engages the passions.