Possession hinders enjoyment. It merely gives you the right to keep things for or from others, and thus you gain more enemies than friends.

Many get the repute of being witty but thereby lose the credit of being sensible. Jest has its little hour, seriousness should have all the rest.

If there is nothing left to desire, there is everything to fear, an unhappy state of happiness.

Passion colors all that it touches in its own hues.

It is a novel kind of supremacy, the best that life can offer, to have as servants by skill those who by nature are our masters.

Exaggeration is a prodigality of the judgment which shows the narrowness of one's knowledge or one's taste.

The sage never seems to know his own merits, for only by not noticing them can you call others' attention to them.