Sorrows gather around great souls as storms do around mountains but, like them, they break the storm and purify the air of the plain beneath them.

Beauty attracts us men but if, like an armed magnet it is pointed, beside, with gold and silver, it attracts with tenfold power.

Sorrows are like thunderclouds, in the distance they look black, over our heads scarcely gray.

What makes old age so sad is not that our joys but our hopes cease.

Only actions give life strength only moderation gives it charm.