Life is most delightful on the downward slope.

It is a tedious thing to be always beginning life; they live badly who always begin to live.

Of all the felicities, the most charming is that of a firm and gentle friendship. It sweetens all our cares, dispels our sorrows, and counsels us in all extremities. Nay, if there were no other comfort in it than the pare exercise of so generous a virtue, even for that single reason a man would not be without it; it is a sovereign antidote against all calamities - even against the fear of death itself.

Virtue is that perfect good, which is the complement of a happy life; the only immortal thing that belongs to mortality.

It is easy enough to arouse in a listener a desire for what is honorable; for in every one of us nature has laid the foundations or sown the seeds of the virtues. We are born to them all, all of us, and when a person comes along with the necessary stimulus, then those qualities of the personality are awakened, so to speak, from their slumber.

It is quality rather than quantity that matters.

I had rather never receive a kindness than never bestow one.