The most imperious masters over their own servants are at the same time the most abject slaves to the servants of others.

The greatest man is he who chooses right with the most invincible resolution; who resists to sorest temptation from within and without; who bears the heaviest burdens cheerfully; who is calmest in storms, and most fearless under menaces and frowns; whose reliance on truth, on virtue, and on God is most unfaltering.

True wisdom consists in not departing from nature and in molding our conduct according to her laws and model.

A great step toward independence is a good-humoured stomach.

To things which you bear with impatience you should accustom yourself, and, by habit you will bear them well.

A physician is not angry at the intemperance of a mad patient, nor does he take it ill to be railed at by a man in fever. Just so should a wise man treat all mankind, as a physician does his patient, and look upon them only as sick and extravagant.

We are born to lose and to perish, to hope and to fear, to vex ourselves and others; and there is no antidote against a common calamity but virtue; for the foundation of true joy is in the conscience.