Refuse to let the thought of death bother you: nothing is grim when we have escaped that fear.

Precepts are the rules by which we ought to square our lives. When they are contracted into sentences, they strike the affections; whereas admonition is only blowing of the coal.

No evil is without its compensation. The less money, the less trouble; the less favor, the less envy. Even in those cases which put us out of wits, it is not the loss itself, but the estimate of the loss that troubles us.

Who timidly requests invites refusal.

The intellect must not be kept at consistent tension, but diverted by pastimes.... The mind must have relaxation, and will rise stronger and keener after recreation.

He invites the commission of a crime who does not forbid it, when it is in his power to do so.

No one loves his country for its size or eminence, but because it's his own.