There’s one blessing only, the source and cornerstone of beatitude—confidence in self.

To keep oneself safe does not mean to bury oneself.

Happy he whoe’er, content with the common lot, with safe breeze hugs the shore, and, fearing to trust his skiff to the wider sea, with unambitious oar keeps close to the land.

It’s the great soul that surrenders itself to fate, but a puny degenerate thing that struggles.

Let us not seek our disease out of ourselves; ’tis in us, and planted in our bowels; and the mere fact that we do not perceive ourselves to be sick, renders us more hard to be cured.

True praise comes often even to the lowly; false praise only to the strong.

Poverty with joy isn’t poverty at all. The poor man is not one who has little, but one who hankers after more.

Pleasure dies at the very moment when it charms us most.

Plain living is nothing but voluntary poverty.

Even after a bad harvest there must be sowing.