Perfection of character is this: to live each day as if it were your last, without frenzy, without apathy, without pretence.

The blazing fire makes flames and brightness out of everything thrown into it.

Failure to read what is happening in another's soul is not easily seen as a cause of unhappiness: but those who fail to attend the motions of their own soul are necessarily unhappy.

To my great-grandfather I owed the advice to dispense with the education of the schools and have good masters at home instead - and to realize that no expense should be grudged for this purpose.

We are born for synergy, just like the feet, just like the hands, just like the eyes, just like the rows of upper and lower teeth. Working against each other is unnatural, and being annoyed and turning one's back is counterproductive.

No man is happy who does not think himself so.

The healthy eye ought to see all visible things and not to say, I wish for green things; for this is the condition of a diseased eye.