The first forty years of our life give the text, the next thirty furnish the commentary upon it, which enables us rightly to understand the true meaning and connection of the text with its moral and its beauties.

Pride is an established conviction of one’s own paramount worth in some particular respect, while vanity is the desire of rousing such a conviction in others, and it is generally accompanied by the secret hope of ultimately coming to the same conviction oneself. Pride works from within; it is the direct appreciation of oneself. Vanity is the desire to arrive at this appreciation indirectly, from without.

People of Wealth and the so called upper class suffer the most from boredom.

Genuine contempt, on the other hand, is the unsullied conviction of the worthlessness of another.

It is in the treatment of trifles that a person shows what they are.

Life is a task to be done. It is a fine thing to say defunctus est; it means that the man has done his task.

It is difficult, if not impossible, to define the limit of our reasonable desires in respect of possessions.