Authority founded on injustice is never of long duration. Consult your friend on all things, especially on those which respect yourself. His counsel may then be useful where your own self-love might impair your judgment. Everything is the product of one universal creative effort. There is nothing dead in Nature. Fate leads the willing and drags along the unwilling. Fire is the test of gold; adversity, of strong men. For greed, all nature is too little. Friendship always benefits; love sometimes injures. From a certain point onward there is no longer any turning back. That is the point that must be reached. We should every night call ourselves to an account: what infirmity have I mastered to-day? what passions opposed? what temptation resisted? what virtue acquired? Our vices will abate of themselves if they be brought every day to the shrift. | 
