Perhaps out there, somewhere, someone is sighing for your absence; and with this thought, my soul begins to breathe.

Do you suppose there is any living man so unreasonable that if he found himself stricken with a dangerous ailment he would not anxiously desire to regain the blessing of health?

A short cut to riches is to subtract from our desires.

Sameness is the mother of disgust, variety the cure.

I saw the tracks of angels in the earth: the beauty of heaven walking by itself on the world.

Life in itself is short enough, but the physicians with their art, know to their amusement, how to make it still shorter.

Books come at my call and return when I desire them; they are never out of humor and they answer all my questions with readiness. Some present in review before me the events of past ages; others reveal to me the secrets of Nature. These teach me how to live, and those how to die; these dispel my melancholy by their mirth, and amuse me by their sallies of wit. Some there are who prepare my soul to suffer everything, to desire nothing, and to become thoroughly acquainted with itself. In a word, they open the door to all the arts and sciences.