“To be exempt from the passions with which others are tormented, is the only pleasing solitude.”

There are infinite reveries, numberless extravagances, and a perpetual train of vanities which pass through both.

That aids and strengthens virtue where it meets her And imitates her actions where she is not: It is not to be sported with.

Honour’s a sacred tie, the law of kings, The noble mind’s distinguishing perfection

Honor’s a fine imaginary notion, that draws in raw and unexperienced men to real mischiefs.

Our delight in any particular study, art, or science rises and improves in proportion to the application which we bestow upon it. Thus, what was at first an exercise becomes at length an entertainment.

This not in mortals to command success, but we’ll do more, Sempronius, we’ll deserve it.

One of the most important but one of the most difficult things for a powerful mind is to be its own master.

In private conversation between intimate friends, the wisest men very often talk like the weakest : for indeed the talking with a friend is nothing else but thinking aloud.

Music, the greatest good that mortals know and all of heaven we have hear below.

Silence is sometimes more significant and sublime than the most noble and most expressive eloquence, and is on many occasions the indication of a great mind.

True happiness arises, in the first place, from the enjoyment of one’s self, and in the next, from the friendship and conversation of a few select companions.

What sunshine is to flowers, smiles are to humanity. These are but trifles, to be sure; but scattered along life’s pathway, the good they do is inconceivable.

There is not a more pleasing exercise of the mind than gratitude. It is accompanied with such an inward satisfaction that the duty is sufficiently rewarded by the performance

it would generally be found that he had suffered more from the apprehension of such evils as never happened to him than from those evils which had really befallen him.

I never knew an early-rising, hard-working, prudent man, careful of his earnings and strictly honest, who complained of hard luck.

Encourage innocent amusement.

The issue has two dimensions. One is the legal dimension and the other one is the issue at the realpolitik. [In the] legal realm.

We all become afraid. We all look at others and think these other people are more fortunate than us.

I detest only the violence and trauma that any self-centered conduct can cause to others.

So we can feel grateful for what we have been given. Sadness soon disappears and, in return, we get inspired to bless others.

Dharma is in your mind, not in the forest. Don’t believe others, just listen to your mind. You don’t have to go anywhere else.

I can read people, and if the other person doesn’t want to say anything,

When we conquer ourselves, then everything will be conquered: oneself, others, and all the sense objects as well, coming in by way of the eyes, ears, nose, tongue and body — it will all get conquered like this.

I suppose I should be happy to be misread; better be that than some of the other things I have become.