Friendship that possesses the whole soul, and there rules and sways with an absolute sovereignty, can admit of no rival.

A wise man never loses anything, if he has himself.

If by being overstudious, we impair our health and spoil our good humor, let us give it up.

We hold death, poverty, and grief for our principal enemies; but this death, which some repute the most dreadful of all dreadful things, who does not know that others call it the only secure harbor from the storm and tempests of life, the sovereign good of nature, the sole support of liberty, and the common and sudden remedy of all evils?

Have you been able to think out and manage your own life? You have done the greatest task of all.... All other things, ruling, hoarding, building, are only little appendages and props, at most.

The least strained and most natural ways of the soul are the most beautiful; the best occupations are the least forced.

In the examples that I here bring in of what I have [read], heard, done or said, I have refrained from daring to alter even the smallest and most indifferent circumstances. My conscience falsifies not an iota; for my knowledge I cannot answer.