If we examine every stage of our lives, we find that from our first breath to our last we are under the constraint of circumstances. And yet we still possess the greatest of all freedoms, the power of developing our innermost selves in harmony with the moral order of the universe, and so winning peace of heart whatever obstacles we meet.

How can you come to know yourself? Never by thinking, always by doing. Try to do your duty, and you'll know right away what you amount to.

The century is advanced, but every individual begins afresh.

Enjoy what you can, endure what you must.

Let's plunge ourselves into the roar of time, the whirl of accident; may pain and pleasure, success and failure, shift as they will -- it's only action that can make a man.

Where confidence is wanting, the most beautiful flower in the garland of love is missing.

Flowers are the beautiful hieroglyphics of nature with which she indicates how much she loves us.