Goodness does not more certainly make men happy than happiness makes them good.

We cannot conquer fate and necessity, yet we can yield to them in such a manner as to be greater than if we could.

A great man knows the value of greatness; he dares not hazard it, he will not squander it.

I never did a single wise thing in the whole course of my existence, although I have written many which have been thought so.

Friendships are the purer and the more ardent, the nearer they come to the presence of God, the Sun not only of righteousness but of love.

An ingenuous mind feels in unmerited praise the bitterest reproof. If you reject it you are unhappy, if you accept it you are undone.

The worse of ingratitude lies not in the ossified heart of him who commits it, but we find it in the effect it produces on him against whom it was committed.