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

“If there is such a thing as a good marriage, it is because it resembles friendship rather than love.”

“[Marriage] happens as with cages: the birds without despair to get in, and those within despair of getting out.”

“There is as much difference between us and ourselves as there is between us and others.”

“Life itself is neither a good nor an evil: life is where good or evil find a place, depending on how you make it for them.”

“Were our pupil's disposition so bizarre that he would rather hear a tall story than the account of a great voyage or a wise discussion; that at the sound of a drum calling the youthful ardour of his comrades to arms he would turn aside for the drum of a troop of jugglers; that he would actually find it no more delightful and pleasant to return victorious covered in the dust of battle than after winning a prize for tennis or dancing; then I know no remedy except that his tutor should quickly strangle him when nobody is looking or apprentice him to make fairy-cakes in some goodly town - even if he were the heir of a Duke - following Plato's precept that functions should be allocated not according to the endowments of men's fathers but the endowments of their souls.”

“There is indeed a certain sense of gratification when we do a good deed that gives us inward satisfaction, and a generous pride that accompanies a good conscience…These testimonies of a good conscience are pleasant; and such a natural pleasure is very beneficial to us; it is the only payment that can never fail. “On Repentance”