Friendship, compounded of esteem and love, derives from one its tenderness and its permanence from the other.

No wise man will go to live in the country, unless he has something to do which can be better done in the country. For instance, if he is to shut himself up for a year to study science, it is better to look out to the fields, than to an opposite wall. Then, if a man walks out in the country, there is nobody to keep him from walking in again: but if a man walks out in London, he is not sure when he will walk in again. A great city is, to be sure, the school for studying life.

Rash oaths, whether kept or broken, frequently produce guilt.

No man can enjoy happiness without thinking that he enjoys it.

Being reproached for giving to an unworthy person, Aristotle said, I did not give it to the man, but to humanity.

The uncertainty of death is, in effect, the great support of the whole system of life.

The whole of life is but keeping away the thoughts of death.