Virtue depends partly upon training and partly upon practice; you must learn first, and then strengthen your learning by action. If this be true, not only do the doctrines of wisdom help us but the precepts also, which check and banish our emotions by a sort of official decree.

What progress have I made? I am beginning to be my own friend. That is progress indeed

Misfortune is the test of a person's merit.

An unpopular rule is never long maintained.

Poverty needs much, avarice everything.

If I only have the will to be grateful, I am so.

Of all the felicities, the most charming is that of a firm and gentle friendship. It sweetens all our cares, dispels our sorrows, and counsels us in all extremities. Nay, if there were no other comfort in it than the pare exercise of so generous a virtue, even for that single reason a man would not be without it; it is a sovereign antidote against all calamities - even against the fear of death itself.