There is one respect in which beasts show real wisdom... their quiet, placid enjoyment of the present moment.

I constantly saw the false and the bad, and finally the absurd and the senseless, standing in universal admiration and honour.

In action a great heart is the chief qualification. In work, a great head.

To feel envy is human, to savour schadenfreude is devilish

It is the courage to make a clean breast of it in the face of every question that makes the philosopher. He must be like Sophocles' Oedipus, who, seeking enlightenment concerning his terrible fate, pursues his indefatigable inquiry even though he divines that appalling horror awaits him in the answer. But most of us carry with us the Jocasta in our hearts, who begs Oedipus, for God's sake, not to inquire further.

The young should early be trained to bear being left alone; for it is a source of happiness and peace of mind.

In the blessings as well as in the ills of life, less depends upon what befalls us than upon the way in which it is met.