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The spectacle is exhibited to the world of a government deriving its powers from the consent of the governed and having imparted to it only so much power as is necessary for its successful operation.

While I silently ponder on that Change wrought in me, I find no Language equal to it, nor any Means to convey to another a clear Idea of it.

You give but little when you give of your possessions. It is when you give of yourself that you truly give.

Love gives naught but itself and takes naught but from itself.

Beauty is not a need but an ecstasy.

You pray in your distress and in your need; would that you might pray also in the fullness of your joy and in your days of abundance.

Your friend is your needs answered.

We classify too much and enjoy too little.

I don’t know that she is as amusing as she was when she was a child, but she makes me love her and I like people who make me love them. It saves me so much trouble in making myself love them.

Kindred spirits are not so scarce as I used to think. It’s splendid to find out there are so many of them in the world.

Pride in one's work is aroused as soon as work is functionalized. The moment a man has something to do that he likes to do, and can do well, he takes pride in it.

To lament the death of a friend is both natural and just; a sigh or a tear I would allow to his memory: but no profuse or obstinate sorrow.

A wise man is never so busy as in the solitary contemplation of God and the works of Nature.

Where the mind is tinctured with philosophy, there is no place for grief, anxiety, or superfluous vexations.

Oh! the delights of rest when a man comes to be weary, and of meat when he is heartily hungry.

A wise man gives way to tears in some cases, and cannot avoid them in others.

Not to amuse ourselves with either hopes or fears, but to rest satisfied with what we have, which is abundantly sufficient; for he that is so, wants nothing.

Spend, then, the fleeting remnant of your time in a spirit that accords with Nature, and depart contentedly.

Of Severus, my brother, I learned to love my kinsmen, to love truth, to love justice.

Observe continually that all things exist in change; and keep this thought ever with you, that Nature loves nothing more than changing what things now are, and making others like them.

Love the art which you have learned, humble though it be, and in it find your recreation.

Death, like birth, is a mystery of nature; the one a compounding of elements, the other a resolution into the same.

The present moment is the same for all men, and their loss, therefore, is equal, for it is clear that what they lose in death is but a fleeting instant of time.

it is in regard to friendship, as in so many other things, so supple and sensitive that it expands, so to speak, at a friend's good fortune, contracts at his misfortunes

Now, old age is as it were the playing out of the drama, the full fatigue of which we should shun, especially when we also feel that we have had more than enough of it.