The spirit in which a thing is given determines that in which the debt is acknowledged; it's the intention, not the face-value of the gift, that's weighed.
Nothing is so bitter that a calm mind cannot find comfort in it.
The great pilot can sail even when his canvass is rent.
Adversity finds at last the man whom she has often passed by.
That is never too often repeated, which is never sufficiently learned.
We should every night call ourselves to an account: What infirmity have I mastered today? What passions opposed? What temptation resisted? What virtue acquired? Our vices will abate of themselves if they be brought every day to the shrift.