“Few are those who wish to be endowed with virtue rather than to seem so.”

“To be rather than to seem.”

“As for myself, I can only exhort you to look on Friendship as the most valuable of all human possessions, no other being equally suited to the moral nature of man, or so applicable to every state and circumstance, whether of prosperity or adversity, in which he can possibly be placed. But at the same time I lay it down as a fundamental axiom that "true Friendship can only subsist between those who are animated by the strictest principles of honour and virtue." When I say this, I would not be thought to adopt the sentiments of those speculative moralists who pretend that no man can justly be deemed virtuous who is not arrived at that state of absolute perfection which constitutes, according to their ideas, the character of genuine wisdom. This opinion may appear true, perhaps, in theory, but is altogether inapplicable to any useful purpose of society, as it supposes a degree of virtue to which no mortal was ever capable of rising.”

“The authority of those who teach is often an obstacle to those who want to learn.”

“Knowledge which is divorced from justice may be called cunning rather than wisdom.”

“Diseases of the soul are more dangerous and more numerous than those of the body.”

“Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all others.”