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Whereas among real friends there is no rivalry or jealousy of one another, but they are satisfied and contented alike whether they are equal or one of them is superior.

a friend should be like money tried before being required, not found faulty in our need

It also makes for contentedness, when things happen against our wish, not to overlook our many advantages and comforts, but by looking at both good and bad to feel that the good preponderate.

Let us cleanse therefore the fountain of contentedness, which is within us, that so external things may turn out for our good, through our putting the best face on them.

Self-love is mainly to blame, making people fond of being first and aspiring in all matters, and insatiably desirous to engage in everything.

the foolish overlook and neglect present blessings, through their thoughts being ever intent on the future; but the wise make the past clearly present to them through memory

the immoderate desire for each, implanting a most immoderate fear of losing them, makes the enjoyment of them weak and wavering, like a flame under the influence of a wind

the body is weighed down by the burden of what presses on it, but the soul often adds to the real load a burden of its own

the sensible make their life pleasanter and more endurable by mitigating their sorrows with the consideration of their blessings, while most people, like sieves, let the worst things stick to them while the best pass through

If I feel overshadowed and outdone by great neighbors, I can yet love; I can still receive; and he that loveth maketh his own the grandeur he loves.

A man's power is hooped in by a necessity, which, by many experiments, he touches on every side, until he learns its arc.

The pleasure of life is according to the man that lives it, and not according to the work or the place.

A friend is a person with whom I may be sincere.

Friendship, like the immortality of the soul, is too good to be believed.

We say so because we feel that what we love is not in your will, but above it.

If you can love me for what I am, we shall be the happier.

Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.

To be great is to be misunderstood

Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string.

One protects himself by solitude, and one by courtesy, and one by an acid, worldly manner,--each concealing how he can the thinness of his skin and his incapacity for strict association.

To be beautiful and to be calm, without mental fear, is the ideal of nature. If I cannot achieve it, at least I can think it.

Let my soul become enlarged; I am not enough; I am little and contemptible.

Until he has been part of a cause larger than himself, no man is truly whole.

It never seems to them that they have served enough; they have a fine impatience of their virtues.

Human judgment is never unerring, and is rarely regarded as otherwise than wrong by the unsuccessful party in the contest.