If you are surprised at the number of our maladies, count our cooks.

Finally, everybody agrees that no one pursuit can be successfully followed by a man who is preoccupied with many things-eloquence cannot, nor the liberal studies-since the mind, when distracted, takes in nothing very deeply, but rejects everything that is, as it were, crammed into it. There is nothing the busy man is less busied with than living: there is nothing that is harder to learn.

Let him who has granted a favour speak not of it; let him who has received one, proclaim it.

A great step towards independence is a good-humored stomach, one that is willing to endure rough treatment.

Nothing is so wretched or foolish as to anticipate misfortunes. What madness it is to be expecting evil before it comes.

That which we are not permitted to have we delight in; that which we can have is disregarded.

Life is never incomplete if it is an honorable one. At whatever point you leave life, if you leave it in the right way, it is whole.