Nobility should be elective, not hereditary.

Laugh as loud as you please at your companion's wit; do not even smile at his folly.

Though fancy may be the patient's complaint, necessity is often the doctor's.

The human mind, in proportion as it is deprived of external resources, sedulously labors to find within itself the means of happiness, learns to rely with confidence on its own exertions, and gains with greater certainty the power of being happy.

That happy state of mind, so rarely possessed, in which we can say, "I have enough," is the highest attainment of philosophy.

One ought to love society, if he wishes to enjoy solitude. It is a social nature that solitude works upon with the most various power. If one is misanthropic, and betakes himself to loneliness that he may get away from hateful things, solitude is a silent emptiness to him.

Thought and action are the redeeming features of our lives.