Music directly imitates the passions or states of the soul...when one listens to music that imitates a certain passion, he becomes imbued withthe same passion; and if over a long time he habitually listens to music that rouses ignoble passions, his whole character will be shaped to an ignoble form.

You will never do anything in this world without courage. It is the greatest quality of the mind next to honor.

Be a free thinker and don't accept everything you hear as truth. Be critical and evaluate what you believe in.

Opinion involves belief (for without belief in what we opine we cannot have an opinion), and in the brutes though we often find imagination we never find belief.

Great and frequent reverses can crush and mar our bliss both by the pain they cause and by the hindrance they offer to many activities. Yet nevertheless even in adversity nobility shines through, when a man endures repeated and severe misfortune with patience, not owing to insensibility but from generosity and greatness of soul.

The senses are gateways to the intelligence. There is nothing in the intelligence which did not first pass through the senses.

He who sees things grow from the beginning will have the best view of them.