May you live unenvied, and pass many pleasant years unknown to fame; and also have congenial friends.
[Lat., Vive sine invidia, mollesque inglorius annos
Exige; amicitias et tibi junge pares.]
Moderation, which consists in indifference about little things, and in a prudent and well-proportioned zeal about things of importance, can proceed from nothing but true knowledge, which has its foundation in self-acquaintance.
A sense of contentment is crucial to being happy. Physical health, material wealth and friends contribute to this, but contentment governs our relations with them all.
It will be your duty, and it will be your pleasure too to estimate her (as you chose her) by the qualities that she has, and not by the qualities she may not have.
We do not want joy and anger to neutralize each other and produce a surly contentment; we want a fiercer delight and a fiercer discontent. We have to feel the universe at once as an ogre's castle, to be stormed, and yet as our own cottage, to which we can return to at evening.
Contentment preserves one from catching cold. Has a woman who knew that she was well dressed ever caught a cold? No, not even when she had scarcely a rag on her back.