“No man’s abilities are so remarkably shining as not to stand in need of a proper opportunity.”

An object in possession seldom retains the same charm that it had in pursuit.

Not a day without a line.

In wine there is health.

A short death is the sovereign good hap of human life.

The depth of darkness to which you can descend and still live is an exact measure of the height to which you can aspire to reach.

Man naturally yearns for novelty.

In these matters the only certainty is that nothing is certain.

I would have a man generous to his country, his neighbors, his kindred, his friends, and most of all his poor friends. Not like some who are most lavish with those who are able to give most of them.

Now, that the sovereign power and deity, whatsoever it is, should have regard of mankind, is a toy and vanity worthy to be laughed at.

Human nature is fond of novelty.

Our youth and manhood are due to our country, but our declining years are due to ourselves.

I think it is the most beautiful and humane thing in the world, so to mingle gravity with pleasure that the one may not sink into melancholy, nor the other rise up into wantonness.

From the end spring new beginnings.

The best plan is to profit by the folly of others.

Envy always implies conscious inferiority wherever it resides.

Lust is an enemy to the purse, a foe to the person, a canker to the mind, a corrosive to the conscience, a weakness of the wit, a besotter of the senses, and finally, a mortal bane to all the body.

Golden bracelets, diamonds and rare blue pearls. New gadgets and sparkling shoes, Things I do not own left languishing in the wooden drawer I do not have. I am too busy walking in parks admiring the city from afar and mesmerising dancing trees.

God changes caterpillars into butterflies, sand into pearls and coal into diamonds using time and pressure. He’s working on you, too.

The sun shines equally on diamond and charcoal, but the former has developed qualities that enable it to reflect the sunlight brilliantly, while the latter is unable to reflect the sunlight. Emulate the diamond in your dealings with people. Brightly reflect the light of God’s love.

I’ve found you at last like a diamond glowing high in the endless sky.

You can’t cry on a diamond’s shoulder, and diamonds won’t keep you warm at night, but they’re sure fun when the sun shines.

I thought of the soul as resembling a castle, formed of a single diamond or a very transparent crystal, and containing many rooms, just as in Heaven there are many mansions.

By what strange law of mind is it that an idea long overlooked, and trodden under foot as a useless stone, suddenly sparkles out in new light, as a discovered diamond?

No pressure, no diamonds.