The first petition that we are to make to Almighty God is for a good conscience, the next for health of mind, and then of body.

The man who has learned to triumph over sorrow wears his miseries as though they were sacred fillets upon his brow; and nothing is so entirely admirable as a man bravely wretched.

Haste trips up its own heels, fetters and stops itself.

You have to persevere and fortify your pertinacity until the will to good becomes a disposition to good.

As the world leads we follow.

The philosopher: he alone knows how to live for himself. He is the one, in fact, who knows the fundamental thing: how to live.

In my own time there have been inventions of this sort, transparent windows tubes for diffusing warmth equally through all parts of a building short-hand, which has been carried to such a perfection that a writer can keep pace with the most rapid speaker. But the inventing of such things is drudgery for the lowest slaves; philosophy lies deeper. It is not her office to teach men how to use their hands. The object of her lessons is to form the soul.