A gem cannot be polished without friction, nor a man perfected without trials.

In war there is no prize for runner-up.

The bravest sight in the world is to see a great man struggling against adversity.

You learn to know a pilot in a storm.

One of the most beautiful qualities of true friendship is to understand and to be understood.

A person's fears are lighter when the danger is at hand.

There is no person so severely punished, as those who subject themselves to the whip of their own remorse.

He has committed the crime who profits by it.

It is quality rather than quantity that matters.

While we are postponing, life speeds by.

Time discovers truth.

A well governed appetite is the greater part of liberty.

Life is the fire that burns and the sun that gives light. Life is the wind and the rain and the thunder in the sky. Life is matter and is earth, what is and what is not, and what beyond is in Eternity.

No man was ever wise by chance.

One crime has to be concealed by another.

The mind unlearns with difficulty what it has long learned.

So live with men as if God saw you and speak to God, as if men heard you.

There is no delight in owning anything unshared.

Poverty wants some, luxury many, and avarice all things.

Believe me, that was a happy age, before the days of architects, before the days of builders.

Expecting is the greatest impediment to living. In anticipation of tomorrow, it loses today.

We often want one thing and pray for another, not telling the truth even to the gods.

Call it Nature, Fate, Fortune; all these are names of the one and selfsame God.

Anger: an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured.

The heart is great which shows moderation in the midst of prosperity.

I don't consider myself bald, I'm just taller than my hair.

When an author is too meticulous about his style, you may presume that his mind is frivolous and his content flimsy.

Those who boast of their descent, brag on what they owe to others.

A great fortune is a great slavery.

Success consecrates the most offensive crimes.

The way is long if one follows precepts, but short... if one follows patterns.

It is better, of course, to know useless things than to know nothing.

No evil propensity of the human heart is so powerful that it may not be subdued by discipline.

Most powerful is he who has himself in his own power.

True happiness is... to enjoy the present, without anxious dependence upon the future.

Consider, when you are enraged at any one, what you would probably think if he should die during the dispute.

A sword never kills anybody; it is a tool in the killer's hand.

If you judge, investigate.

A great mind becomes a great fortune.

For greed all nature is too little.

If you would judge, understand.

One must steer, not talk.

It's not because things are difficult that we dare not venture. It's because we dare not venture that they are difficult.

Wisdom does not show itself so much in precept as in life - in firmness of mind and a mastery of appetite. It teaches us to do as well as to talk; and to make our words and actions all of a color.

There is a noble manner of being poor, and who does not know it will never be rich.

Where fear is, happiness is not.

Anger, if not restrained, is frequently more hurtful to us than the injury that provokes it.

I shall never be ashamed of citing a bad author if the line is good.

There is nothing in the world so much admired as a man who knows how to bear unhappiness with courage.