Wealth, religion and military victory have more rhetorical than efficacious worth. There is no cure for birth and death save to enjoy the interval. The passions grafted on wounded pride are the most inveterate; they are green and vigorous in old age. The lover knows much more about absolute good and universal beauty than any logician or theologian, unless the latter, too, be lovers in disguise. The loftiest edifices need the deepest foundations. The human mind is not rich enough to drive many horses abreast and wants one general scheme, under which it strives to bring everything. The highest form of vanity is love of fame. Knowledge is recognition of something absent; it is a salutation, not an embrace. The aim of life is some way of living, as flexible and gentle as human nature; so that ambition may stoop to kindness, and philosophy to condor and humor. Neither prosperity nor empire nor heaven can be worth winning at the price of a virulent temper, bloody hands, an anguished spirit, and a vain hatred of the rest of the world. Knowledge of what is possible is the beginning of happiness. | 
