if you cannot get what you want, common sense suggests that you should put your mind to wanting what you can get.

Once a suggestion has entered the general atmosphere of human thought, it is very difficult to neutralise it.

Take things as they come. Take things as they are. What does it matter? There's one end to everything.

Love and a cold cannot be hid. It is, I believe, a Spanish proverb.

it isn't good tactics to ask for something that you know will be refused.

The fact is, people who don't have any misfortunes are very irritating to their neighbours. No opportunities for popping in with condolences and new-laid eggs. No visits to the afflicted. No opportunities for the milk of human kindness to flow. Naturally it doesn't.

Emotion which you do not share can become intolerable.