The touchstone of false friends is the day of need: by way of proof, ask a loan from your friends.

Become placeless, for to change this place of water and clay is but to move from one prison to another.

Peace is in proportion to every pause: observe the difference between to run, to walk, to stand, to sit, to lie, to die.

What does it profit you that all the libraries of the world should be yours? Not knowledge but what one does with knowledge is your profit.

The roots of the aged palm tree exceed those of the young one; the old have a greater attachment to the world.

When poison becomes a habit, it ceases to injure: make your soul gradually acquainted with death.

To quit this troubled world is better than to enter it: the rosebud enters the garden with straitened heart and departs smiling.