The words that a father speaks to his children in the privacy of home are not heard by the world, but, as in whispering galleries, they are clearly heard at the end, and by posterity.

With so many thousand joys, is it not black ingratitude to call the world a place of sorrow and torment?

People will not bear it when advice is violently given, even if it is well founded. Hearts are flowers; they remain open to the softly falling dew, but shut up in the violent downpour of rain.

It is not the end of joy that makes old age so sad, but the end of hope.

If self-knowledge is the road to virtue, so is virtue still more the road to self-knowledge.

What a father says to his children is not heard by the world, but it will be heard by posterity.

Whenever, at a party, I have been in the mood to study fools, I have always looked for a great beauty: they always gather round her like flies around a fruit stall.