The desire for riches is more sharpened by their use than by their need. Pleasing all: a mark that can never be aimed at or hit.

The value of life lies not in the length of days, but in the use we make of them... Whether you find satisfaction in life depends not on your tale of years, but on your will.

Valor is stability, not of legs and arms, but of courage and the soul.

The greatest thing in the world is to know how to belong to oneself.

A man who fears suffering is already suffering from what he fears.

My life has been full of terrible misfortunes most of which never happened.

There is no conversation more boring than the one where everybody agrees.

A good marriage would be between a blind wife and a deaf husband.

Experience has taught me this, that we undo ourselves by impatience. Misfortunes have their life and their limits, their sickness and their health.

Marriage is like a cage; one sees the birds outside desperate to get in, and those inside equally desperate to get out.

The most certain sign of wisdom is cheerfulness.

The greater the grace, the greater the light

Until sin be bitter, Christ will not be sweet.

It's no such thing! she said. It's friendship! And if you're a man who can't tell friendship from charity, then you're to be pitied!

Mattresses! Beautiful! Let's go buy a couple of mattresses. Give 'em to people for their birthday.

Make something beautiful of your life.

No one's ever completely broken. It's just a matter of how much has to fall apart before the ember of life is exposed to air.

Myths are the prototype for all stories. When we write a story on our own it can't help but link up with all sorts of myths. Myths are like a reservoir containing every story there is.

All the old houses that I knew when I was a child were full of books, bought generation after generation by members of the family. Nobody told you to read this or not to read that.

That foreign trade should be fair rather than free.

No virtue fades out of mankind. Not over-hopeful by inborn temperament, cautious by long experience, I yet never despair of human virtue.