It is a rough road that leads to the heights of greatness.
If one does not know to which port one is sailing, no wind is favorable.
Consult your friend on all things, especially on those which respect yourself. His counsel may then be useful where your own self-love might impair your judgment.
Brave men rejoice in adversity, just as brave soldiers triumph in war.
In war, when a commander becomes so bereft of reason and perspective that he fails to understand the dependence of arms on Divine guidance, he no longer deserves victory.
A gem cannot be polished without friction, nor a man perfected without trials.
A happy life is one which is in accordance with its own nature.
What nature requires is obtainable, and within easy reach. It is for the superfluous we sweat.
The day which we fear as our last is but the birthday of eternity.
Believe me, that was a happy age, before the days of architects, before the days of builders.
True happiness is… to enjoy the present, without anxious dependence upon the future.
Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful.
The less we deserve good fortune, the more we hope for it.
To be able to endure odium is the first art to be learned by those who aspire to power.
Most powerful is he who has himself in his own power.
It is another’s fault if he be ungrateful, but it is mine if I do not give. To find one thankful man, I will oblige a great many that are not so.
We can be thankful to a friend for a few acres, or a little money; and yet for the freedom and command of the whole earth, and for the great benefits of our being, our life, health, and reason, we look upon ourselves as under no obligation.
The first step in a person’s salvation is knowledge of their sin.
It makes a great deal of difference whether one wills not to sin or has not the knowledge to sin.
A person’s fears are lighter when the danger is at hand.
No one can be happy who has been thrust outside the pale of truth. And there are two ways that one can be removed from this realm: by lying, or by being lied to.
There is nothing in the world so much admired as a man who knows how to bear unhappiness with courage.
It is a rough road that leads to the heights of greatness.
The bravest sight in the world is to see a great man struggling against adversity.
The wish for healing has always been half of health.
Health is the soul that animates all the enjoyments of life, which fade and are tasteless without it.
Everywhere is nowhere. When a person spends all his time in foreign travel, he ends by having many acquaintances, but no friends.
Great grief does not of itself put an end to itself.
We are more often frightened than hurt and we suffer more from imagination than from reality.
If thou art a man, admire those who attempt great things, even though they fail.
One of the most beautiful qualities of true friendship is to understand and to be understood.
The display of grief makes more demands than grief itself. How few men are sad in their own company.
Wisdom does not show itself so much in precept as in life – in firmness of mind and a mastery of appetite. It teaches us to do as well as to talk and to make our words and actions all of a color.
Wisdom allows nothing to be good that will not be so forever no man to be happy but he that needs no other happiness than what he has within himself no man to be great or powerful that is not master of himself.
Life’s like a play: it’s not the length, but the excellence of the acting that matters.
Success is not greedy, as people think, but insignificant. That is why it satisfies nobody.
For many men, the acquisition of wealth does not end their troubles, it only changes them.
Ignorant people see life as either existence or non-existence, but wise men see it beyond both existence and non-existence to something that transcends them both; this is an observation of the Middle Way.
Anger, if not restrained, is frequently more hurtful to us than the injury that provokes it.
Anger is like those ruins which smash themselves on what they fall.
A large part of mankind is angry not with the sins, but with the sinners.
The deferring of anger is the best antidote to anger.
Shall I tell you what the real evil is? To cringe to the things that are called evils, to surrender to them our freedom, in defiance of which we ought to face any suffering.
The mind that is anxious about the future is miserable.