Poverty is often concealed in splendor, and often in extravagance. It is the task of many people to conceal their neediness from others. Consequently they support themselves by temporary means, and everyday is lost in contriving for tomorrow.

Men are most powerfully affected by those evils which themselves feel, or which appear before their own eyes.

You cannot give me an instance of any man who is permitted to lay out his own time contriving not to have tedious hours.

To set the mind above the appetites is the end of abstinence, which one of the Fathers observes to be not a virtue, but the groundwork of virtue.

Life protracted is protracted woe.

Never, my dear Sir, do you take it into your head that I do not love you; you may settle yourself in full confidence both of my love and my esteem; I love you as a kind man, I value you as a worthy man, and hope in time to reverence you as a man of exemplary piety.

Gratitude is a fruit of great cultivation; you do not find it among gross people.