Wisdom and penetration are the fruit of experience, not the lessons of retirement and leisure. Great necessities call out great virtues.

Age in a virtuous person, of either sex, carries in it an authority which makes it preferable to all the pleasures of youth.

Humility is a virtue all preach, none practice; and yet everybody is content to hear.

There is virtue in work and there is virtue in rest. Use both and overlook neither.

If everyone were clothed with integrity, if every heart were just, frank, kindly, the other virtues would be well-nigh unless, since their chief purpose is to make us bear with patience the injustice of our fellows.

Virtue is a state of war, and to live in it we have always to combat with ourselves.

To be able to practice five things everywhere under the heaven constitutes perfect virtue. . . gravity, generosity of soul, sincerity, earnestness and kindness.

A wise man proportions his belief to the evidence.

Calmness of mind is one of the beautiful jewels of wisdom.

There is a wisdom in this beyond the rules of physic. A man’s own observation, what he finds good of and what he finds hurt of, is the best physic to preserve health.

You are a fool in four letters, my son.

We should be careful to get out of an experience only the wisdom that is in it—and stop there; lest we be like the cat that sits down on a hot stove lid. She will never sit down on a hot stove lid again—and that is well; but also she will never sit down on a cold one any more.

Where there is charity and wisdom, there is neither fear nor ignorance. Where there is patience and humility, there is neither anger nor vexation. Where there is poverty and joy, there is neither greed nor avarice. Where there is peace and meditation, there is neither anxiety nor doubt.