If I was a nightingale I would sing like a nightingale; if a swan, like a swan. But since I am a rational creature my role is to praise God.

Avoid banquets which are given by strangers an ignorant persons. But if there is ever occasion to join them, let your attention be carefully fixed, that you slip not into the manner of the vulgar (the uninstructed).

Silence is safer than speech.

The soul that companies with virtue is like an ever-flowing source. It is a pure, clear, and wholesome draught, sweet, rich and generous of its store, that injures not, neither destroys.

The wise realize that some things are within their control, and most things are not. They learn early on to distinguish between what they can and can't regulate.

No great thing is created suddenly.

It is not things in themselves which trouble us, but our opinions of things.