You might as well take the sun out of the sky as friendship from life: for the immortal gods have given us nothing better or more delightful.

A perverse temper and fretful disposition will make any state of life whatsoever unhappy.

I look upon the pleasure which we take in a garden as one of the most innocent delights in human life. . . It gives us a great insight into the contrivance and wisdom of Nature, and suggests innumerable subjects for meditation.

Learning is a kind of natural food for the mind.

As the scale of the balance must give way to the weight that presses it down, so the mind must of necessity yield to demonstration.

Even the ablest pilots are willing to receive advice from passengers in tempestuous weather.

The injuries that befall us unexpectedly are less severe than those which are deliberately anticipated.