Human behavior flows from three main sources: desire, emotion, and knowledge.

• He who is of calm and happy nature will hardly feel the pressure of age, but to him who is of an opposite disposition youth and age are equally a burden.
• Wisdom alone is the science of other sciences.
• There are two things a person should never be angry at, what they can help, and what they cannot.
• The beginning is the most important part of the work.
• Rhetoric is the art of ruling the minds of men.
• The man who makes everything that leads to happiness depends upon himself, and not upon other men, has adopted the very best plan for living happily. This is the man of moderation, the man of manly character and of wisdom.
• There's a victory, and defeat the first and best of victories, the lowest and worst of defeats which each man gains or sustains at the hands not of another, but of himself.
• Justice means minding one's own business and not meddling with other men's concerns.
• Excess generally causes reaction, and produces a change in the opposite direction, whether it be in the seasons, or in individuals, or in governments.
• Courage is a kind of salvation.