The desire for riches is more sharpened by their use than by their need. Pleasing all: a mark that can never be aimed at or hit.

The easy, gentle, and sloping path . . . is not the path of true virtue. It demands a rough and thorny road.

I care not so much what I am to others as what I am to myself. I will be rich by myself, and not by borrowing.

My library is my kingdom, and here I try to make my rule absolute-shutting off this single nook from wife, daughter and society. Elsewhere I have only a verbal authority, and vague. Unhappy is the man, in my opinion, who has no spot at home where he can be at home to himself-to court himself and hide away.

Nothing is so firmly believed as what we least know.

When I play with my cat, who knows whether she is not amusing herself with me more than I with her.

He that I am reading seems always to have the most force.