Desultory reading is delightful, but to be beneficial, our reading must be carefully directed.

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.

Democracy is more cruel than wars or tyrants.

The first proof of a well-ordered mind is to be able to pause and linger within itself.

Philosophy alone makes the mind invincible, and places us out of the reach of fortune, so that all her arrows fall short of us.

He that does good to another does good also to himself, not only in the consequence but in the very act. For the consciousness of well-doing is in itself ample reward.

We are sure to get the better of fortune if we do but grapple with her.