“I scarcely know the meaning of your question; much less can I answer it.”

Nothing is miserable but what is thought so, and contrariwise, every estate is happy if he that bears it be content.

If there is a God, whence proceed so many evils? If there is no God, whence cometh any good?

If there is anything good about nobility it is that it enforces the necessity of avoiding degeneracy.

In every adversity of fortune, to have been happy is the most unhappy kind of misfortune.

The science of numbers ought to be preferred as an acquisition before all others, because of its necessity and because of the great secrets and other mysteries which there are in the properties of numbers. All sciences partake of it, and it has need of none.

He who has calmly reconciled his life to fate … can look fortune in the face.

No man can ever be secure until he has been forsaken by Fortune.

One’s virtue is all that one truly has, because it is not imperiled by the vicissitudes of fortune.

Nothing is miserable unless you think it so.

Music is part of us, and either ennobles or degrades our behavior.

All fortune is good fortune; for it either rewards, disciplines, amends, or punishes, and so is either useful or just.

Inconsistency is my very essence; it is the game I never cease to play as I turn my wheel in its ever changing circle, filled with joy as I bring the top to the bottom and the bottom to the top.

He who has calmly reconciled his life to fate, and set proud death beneath his feet, can look fortune in the face, unbending both to good and bad; his countenance unconquered.

And no renown can render you well-known: For if you think that fame can lengthen life By mortal famousness immortalized, The day will come that takes your fame as well, And there a second death for you awaits.

Give me Thy light, and fix my eyes on Thee!

In other living creatures the ignorance of themselves is nature, but in men it is a vice.

The limit of man s knowledge in any subject possesses a high interest which is perhaps increased by its close neighbourhood to the realms of imagination.

Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge.

Anything that is learned can be unlearned and relearned.

The world is darkness; knowledge is light; but knowledge without truth is a mere shadow.

Words have a magical power. They can bring either the greatest happiness or deepest despair; they can transfer knowledge from teacher to student; words enable the orator to sway his audience and dictate its decisions.

How many lessons there are and how little they are taken.

The more I study, the more insatiable do I feel my genius for it to be.

It is not so much our friends’ help that helps us as the confident knowledge that they will help us.