Who is it that does not voluntarily exchange his health, his repose, and his very life for reputation and glory? The most useless, frivolous, and false coin that passes current among us.

Experience has further taught me this, that we ruin ourselves by impatience.

My trade and art is to live.

Every man may speak truly, but to speak methodically, prudently, and fully is a talent that few men have.

Habituation puts to sleep the eye of our judgment.

I would like to suggest that our minds are swamped by too much study and by too much matter just as plants are swamped by too much water or lamps by too much oil; that our minds, held fast and encumbered by so many diverse preoccupations, may well lose the means of struggling free, remaining bowed and bent under the load; except that it is quite otherwise: the more our souls are filled, the more they expand; examples drawn from far-off times show, on the contrary, that great soldiers ad statesmen were also great scholars.

The first lessons with which we should irrigate his mind should be those which teach him to know himself, and to know how to die ... and to live.