A large library is apt to distract rather than to instruct the learner; it is much better to be confined to a few authors than to wander at random over many.

What difference does it make how much there is laid away in a man's safe or in his barns, how many head of stock he grazes or how much capital he puts out at interest, if he is always after what is another's and only counts what he has yet to get, never what he has already. You ask what is the proper limit to a person's wealth? First, having what is essential, and second, having what is enough.

A dwarf is small even if he stands on a mountain; a colossus keeps his height, even if he stands in a well.

There is no benefit so large that malignity will not lessen it; none so narrow that a good interpretation will not enlarge it.

What if a man save my life with a draught that was prepared to poison me? The providence of the issue does not at all discharge the obliquity of the intent. And the same reason holds good even in religion itself. It is not the incense, or the offering that is acceptable to God, but the purity and devotion of the worshipper.

Wherever there is a human being, there is an opportunity for a kindness.

Some lack the fickleness to live as they wish and just live as they have begun.