“The important question is not, what will yield to man a few scattered pleasures, but what will render his life happy on the whole amount.”

“What sunshine is to flowers, smiles are to humanity. These are but trifles, to be sure; but scattered along life's pathway, the good they do is inconceivable.”

“True happiness is of a retired nature, and an enemy to pomp and noise; it arises, in the first place, in the enjoyment of one's self, and, in the next, from the friendship and conversation of a few select companions.”

“The greatest sweetener of human life is Friendship. To raise this to the highest pitch of enjoyment, is a secret which but few discover”

“A man must be both stupid and uncharitable who believes there is no virtue or truth but on his own side.”

“We all of us complain of the shortness of time, saith Seneca, and yet have much more than we know what to do with. Our lives, says he, are spent either in doing nothing at all, or in doing nothing to the purpose, or in doing nothing that we ought to do: we are always complaining our days are few, and acting as though there would no end of them."- On the Right Use of Time”

“Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body.”