True joy is a serene and sober motion; and they are miserably out so that take laughing for rejoicing; the seat of it is within, and there is no cheerfulness like the resolutions of a brave mind.

The mind does not easily unlearn what it has been long in learning.

That which achieves its effect by accident is not art.

As the mother's womb holds us for ten months, making us ready, not for the womb itself, but for life, just so, through our lives, we are making ourselves ready for another birth...Therefore look forward without fear to that appointed hour- the last hour of the body, but not of the soul...That day, which you fear as being the end of all things, is the birthday of your eternity.

Death is a punishment to some, to others a gift and to many a favour.

There are no greater wretches in the world than many of those whom people in general take to be happy.

Poverty needs much, avarice everything.