Use a sweet tongue, courtesy, and gentleness, and thou mayest manage to guide an elephant by a hair.
However much you study, you cannot know without action. A donkey laden with books is neither an intellectual nor a wise man. Empty of essence, what learning has he whether upon him is firewood or book?
Independence is of more value than any gifts; and to receive gifts is to lose it.
I have never seen a man lost who was on a straight path.
Joy and sorrow, beauty and deformity, equally pass away.
The severity of the master is more useful than the indulgence of the father.