If you wish to be loved, love.

Nature has made us passive, and to suffer is our lot. While we are in the flesh every man has his chain and his clog; only it is looser and lighter to one man than to another, and he is more at ease who takes it up and carries it than he who drags it.

What were once vices are the fashion of the day.

A good conscience fears no witness, but a guilty conscience is solicitous even in solitude. If we do nothing but what is honest, let all the world know it. But if otherwise, what does it signify to have nobody else know it, so long as I know it myself? Miserable is he who slights that witness.

Necessity is stronger than duty.

In a moment the ashes are made, but a forest is a long time growing.

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