... Allow yourself a space of quiet, wherein you can add to your knowledge of the Good and learn to curb your restlessness. Guard also against another kind of error: the folly of those who weary their days in much business, but lack any aim on which their whole effort, nay, their whole thought, is focused.

I am called to man's labour; why then do I make a difficulty if I am going out to do what I was born to do and what I was brought into the world for?

As for literature, thefts cannot harm it, while the lapse of ages augments its value

It doesn't hurt me unless I interpret its happening as harmful to me. I can choose not to.

Love the people with whom fate brings you together

Whatever any one does or says, I must be good; just as if the emerald were always saying this: "Whatever any one does or says, I must still be emerald, and keep my color.

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.