Don't seek to have events happen as you wish, but wish them to happen as they do happen, and all will be well with you.

A half-hearted spirit has no power. Tentative efforts lead to tentative outcomes. Average people enter into their endeavors headlong and without care.

Covetousness like jealousy, when it has taken root, never leaves a person, but with their life. Cowardice is the dread of what will happen.

Each man's life is a kind of campaign, and a long and complicated one at that. You have to maintain the character of a soldier, and do each separate act at the bidding of the General.

Who is not attracted by bright and pleasant children, to prattle, to creep, and to play with them?

No man is able to make progress when he is wavering between opposite things.

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.