“Think your way through difficulties: harsh conditions can be softened, restricted ones can be widened, and heavy ones can weigh less on those who know how to bear them.”

“Those whom true love has held, it will go on holding.”

“To bear trials with a calm mind robs misfortune of its strength and burden.”

“We must take a higher view of all things, and bear with them more easily: it better becomes a man to scoff at life than to lament over it.”

A gem cannot be polished without friction, nor a man perfected without trials.

A good mind possesses a kingdom.

A great fortune is a great slavery.

A king is he who has laid fear aside and the base longings of an evil heart; whom ambition unrestrained and the fickle favor of the reckless mob move not.

A man who suffers before it is necessary, suffers more than is necessary.

A man’s ability cannot possibly be of one sort and his soul of another. If his soul be well-ordered, serious and restrained, his ability also is sound and sober. Conversely, when the one degenerates, the other is contaminated.