Some men just aren't cut out for paternity. Better they should realize it before and not after they become responsible for a son.

I take it as a man's duty to restrain himself.

If you make it plain you like people, it's hard for them to resist liking you back.

You don't pay back your parents. You can't. The debt you owe them gets collected by your children, who hand it down in turn. It's a sort of entailment. Or if you don't have children of the body, it's left as a debt to your common humanity. Or to your God, if you possess or are possessed by one.

You have to be careful who you let define your good.

When you give each other everything, it becomes an even trade. Each wins all.

If power was an illusion, wasn't weakness necessarily one also

You couldn't be that good and not know it, somewhere in your secret heart, however much you'd been abused into affecting public humility.

A good friend of my son's is a son to me.

Never... ever suggest they don't have to pay you. What they pay for, they'll value. What they get for free, they'll take for granted, and then demand as a right. Hold them up for all the market will bear.