Circumstances don't make the man, they only reveal him to himself.

Nothing great comes into being all at once.

It is better to advise than upbraid, for the one corrects the erring; the other only convicts them.

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

Whoever then wishes to be free, let him neither wish for anything nor avoid anything which depends on others: if he does not observe this rule, he must be a slave.

When the Idea, of any Pleasure strikes your Imagination... let that time be employed in making a just Computation between, the duration of the Pleasure, and that of the Repentance sure to follow it.

We must be afraid of neither poverty nor exile nor imprisonment; of fear itself only should we be afraid.