Music is part of us, and either ennobles or degrades our behavior.

In other living creatures the ignorance of themselves is nature, but in men it is a vice.

It's my belief that history is a wheel. 'Inconstancy is my very essence,'? says the wheel. Rise up on my spokes if you like but don't complain when you're cast back down into the depths. Good times pass away, but then so do the bad. Mutability is our tragedy, but it's also our hope. The worst of times, like the best, are always passing away.

He who has calmly reconciled his life to fate, and set proud death beneath his feet, can look fortune in the face, unbending both to good and bad; his countenance unconquered.

Nothing is miserable unless you think it so; and on the other hand, nothing brings happiness unless you are content with it.

Whose happiness is so firmly established that he has no quarrel from any side with his estate of life?

The science of numbers ought to be preferred as an acquisition before all others, because of its necessity and because of the great secrets and other mysteries which there are in the properties of numbers. All sciences partake of it, and it has need of none.