“But I must at the very beginning lay down this principle – friendship can only exist between good men.”

The shifts of fortune test the reliability of friends.

It is our own evil thoughts which madden us.

Times are bad. Children no longer obey their parents, and everyone is writing a book.

Old age: the crown of life, our play’s last act.

When you are aspiring to the highest place, it is honorable to reach the second or even the third rank.

Politicians are not born; they are excreted.

A mental stain can neither be blotted out by the passage of time nor washed away by any waters.

Our span of life is brief, but is long enough for us to live well and honestly.

In times of war, the law falls silent.

A mind without instruction can no more bear fruit than can a field, however fertile, without cultivation.

It is not by muscle, speed, or physical dexterity that great things are achieved, but by reflection, force of character, and judgment.

What can be more delightful than to have some one to whom you can say everything with the same absolute confidence as to yourself?

Life is nothing without friendship.

Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all others.

The wise are instructed by reason, average minds by experience, the stupid by necessity and the brute by instinct.

Your enemies can kill you, but only your friends can hurt you.

Very early in life I became fascinated with the wonders language can achieve. And I began playing with words.

When you come to the end, that’s where God begins.

He grew weary of this condescension, and began to treat the opinions of his wife with that haughtiuess and insolence, which none but those who deserve some contempt themselves can bestow, and those only who deserve no contempt can bear.

It is said of great Empires, That the best way to preserve them from decay, is to bring them back to the first Principles, and Arts, on which they did begin.”

Taking mathematics from the beginning of the world to the time when Newton lived, what he had done was much the better half.

By regarding ourselves with kindness, we begin to dissolve the identity of an isolated, deficient self. This creates the grounds for including others in an unconditionally loving heart.

Brokenness is a beginning.

Think where man’s glory most begins and ends, and say my glory was I had such friends.