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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

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 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

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

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.

In the next place, it is false that those that have little to do are easy in mind.

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.

As therefore the shoe is shaped by the foot, and not the foot by the shoe, so does the disposition make the life similar to itself.

when people see their friends' houses on fire they put it out as quickly and energetically as they can, but when their souls are on fire they themselves bring fuel

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 meaning of the living words that come out of the experiences of great hearts can never be exhausted by any one system of logical interpretation.

For we never can make anything our own except that which is truly related to us.

All our egoistic impulses, our selfish desires, obscure our true vision of the soul.

We gain our freedom when we attain our truest nature.

It is the function of religion not to destroy our nature but to fulfil it.

He who is wise tries to harmonise the wishes that seek for self-gratification with the wish for the social good, and only thus can he realise his higher self.

It is for our self to know that it must be born anew every moment of its life.

Only in love are unity and duality not at variance.

Only love is motion and rest in one.

Our heart ever changes its place till it finds love, and then it has its rest.

But music never has to depend upon any obvious meaning; it expresses what no words can ever express.

For joy is knowledge in its completeness, it is knowing by our whole being.

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

To be great is to be misunderstood