Our character is not so much the product of race and heredity as of those circumstances by which nature forms our habits, by which we are nurtured and live.
Friendship is nothing else than entire fellow feeling as to all things human and divine with mutual good-will and affection; and I doubt whether anything better than this, wisdom alone excepted, has been given to man.
No man can be brave who thinks pain the greatest evil; nor temperate, who considers pleasure the highest god.
[Lat., Fortis vero, dolorem summum malum judicans; aut temperans, voluptatem summum bonum statuens, esse certe nullo modo potest.]
For books are more than books, they are the life, the very heart and core of ages past, the reason why men worked and died, the essence and quintessence of their lives.