Desire is poverty. Desire is the greatest impurity of the mind. Desire is the motive force for action. Desire in the mind is the real impurity. Even a spark of desire is a very great evil.

If you would take, you must first give, this is the beginning of intelligence.

Act as if the maxim of your action were to become through your will a general natural law

You always admire what you really don't understand.

It takes a great man to be a good listener.

All our knowledge begins with the senses, proceeds then to the understanding, and ends with reason. There is nothing higher than reason.

We never see ourselves as others see us.

We sometimes congratulate ourselves at the moment of waking from a troubled dream; it may be so the moment after death.

The experience gathered from books, though often valuable,is but the nature of learning whereas the experience gained from actual life is of the nature of wisdom.

The simple things are also the most extraordinary things, and only the wise can see them.

Do your little bit of good where you are; it's those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world.

The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.

There are four ways, and only four ways, in which we have contact with the world. We are evaluated and classified by these four contacts: what we do, how we look, what we say, and how we say it.

Great dreams of great dreamers are always transcended.

As our case is new, we must think and act anew.

It is hard to fight desire; but to control it is the sign of a reasonable man.

The first thing you'll have to do, is the last thing you wished.

Men become wise just as they become rich, more by what they save than by what they receive.

I know I am but mortal and so therewhilst prepare myself for death, whensoever it shall please God to send it.

If you buy what you do not need, you will need what you cannot buy.

One who loses wealth loses much. One who loses a friend loses more. But one who loses courage loses all.