Fortune is the best school of courage when she is fraught with anger, in the same way as winds and tempests are the school of the sailorboy.

The pilot who is always dreading a rock or a tempest must not complain if he remain a poor fisherman. We must at times trust, something to fortune, for fortune has often some share in what happens.

High birth is an accident, not a virtue.

We are like vessels tossed on the bosom of the deep; our passions are the winds that sweep us impetuously forward; each pleasure is a rock; the whole life is a wide ocean. Reason is the pilot to guide us, but often allows itself to be led astray by the storms of pride.

Cowards' weapons neither cut nor pierce.

If our inward griefs were written on our brows, how many who are envied now would be pitied. It would seem that they had their deadliest foe in their own breast, and their whole happiness would be reduced to mere seeming.

It is by no means a fact that death is the worst of all evils; when it comes it is an alleviation to mortals who are worn out with sufferings.