A friend to all is a friend to none.
A true friend is one soul in two bodies.
All human actions have one or more of these seven causes: chance, nature, compulsions, habit, reason, passion, desire.
Anybody can become angry - that is easy, but to be angry with the right person and to the right degree and at the right time and for the right purpose, and in the right way - that is not within everybody's power and is not easy.
He who is to be a good ruler must have first been ruled.
He who is unable to live in society, or who has no need because he is sufficient for himself, must be either a beast or a god. I count him braver who overcomes his desires than him who conquers his enemies; for the hardest victory is over self. Misfortune shows those who are not really friends.
Moral excellence comes about as a result of habit. We become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, brave by doing brave acts. Personal beauty is a greater recommendation than any letter of reference.
Probable impossibilities are to be preferred to improbable possibilities. Quality is not an act, it is a habit. Suffering becomes beautiful when anyone bears great calamities with cheerfulness, not through insensibility but through greatness of mind. The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance. The greatest virtues are those which are most useful to other persons. The ideal man bears the accidents of life with dignity and grace, making the best of circumstances. There was never a genius without a tincture of madness.
This is the reason why mothers are more devoted to their children than fathers: it is that they suffer more in giving them birth and are more certain that they are their own. We must no more ask whether the soul and body are one than ask whether the wax and the figure impressed on it are one.
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