...the geometrician teaches me how to work out the size of my estates rather than how to work out how much a man needs in order to have enough....You geometers can calculate the area of circles, can reduce any given shape to a square, can state the distances separating starts. Nothing's outside your scope when it comes to measurement. Well, if you're such an expert, measure a man's soul; tell me how large or how small that is. You can define a straight line; what use is that to you if you've no idea what straightness means in life?

Who shrinks from knowledge of his calamities but aggravates his fear; troubles half seen, shall torture all the more.

Every one has time if he likes. Business runs after nobody: people cling to it of their own free will and think that to be busy is a proof of happiness.

There are a few men whom slavery holds fast, but there are many more who hold fast to slavery.

There is nothing more miserable and foolish than anticipation.

It is not poverty that we praise, it is the man whom poverty cannot humble or bend.

Many person might have achieved wisdom had they not supposed that they already possessed it.