I do not admire a virtue like valour when it is pushed to excess, if I do not see at the same time the excess of the opposite virtue, as one does in Epaminondas, who displayed extreme valour and extreme benevolence. For otherwise it is not an ascent, but a fall. We do not display our greatness by placing ourselves at one extremity, but rather by being at both at the same time, and filling up the whole of the space between them.

What a difficult thing it is to ask someone's advice on a matter without coloring his judgment by the way in which we present our problem.

The present is never the mark of our designs. We use both past and present as our means and instruments, but the future only as our object and aim.

When we would think of God, how many things we find which turn us away from Him, and tempt us to think otherwise. All this is evil, yet it is innate.

Faith indeed tells what the senses do not tell, but not the contrary of what they see. It is above them and not contrary to them.

When we would show any one that he is mistaken, our best course is to observe on what side he considers the subject,--for his view of if is generally right on this side,--and admit to him that he is right so far. He will be satisfied with this acknowledgment, that he was not wrong in his judgment, but only inadvertent in not looking at the whole case.

Do you wish people to speak well of you? Then do not speak at all yourself.