Just as bones, tissues, intestines, and blood vessels are enclosed in a skin that makes it possible to bear the sight of a human being, so the agitations and passions of the soul are wrapped up in vanity: it is the soul's skin.

Compassion for the friend should conceal itself under a hard shell.

No one can draw more out of things, books included, than he already knows. A man has no ears for that to which experience has given him no access.

When we are tired, we are attacked by ideas we conquered long ago.

Out of damp and gloomy days, out of solitude, out of loveless words directed at us, conclusions grow up in us like fungus: one morning they are there, we know not how, and they gaze upon us, morose and gray. Woe to the thinker who is not the gardener but only the soil of the plants that grow in him.

He who denies himself much in great matters will readily indulge himself in small things.

It is far pleasanter to injure and afterwards beg forgiveness than to be injured and grant forgiveness. He who does the former gives evidence of power and afterwards of kindness of character.