“The greatest sweetener of human life is friendship. To raise this to the highest pitch of enjoyment, is a secret which but few discover.
“Is not marriage an open question, when it is alleged, from the beginning of the world, that such as are in the institution wish to get out, and such as are out wish to get in?
“Those who won our independence believed liberty to be the secret of happiness and courage to be the secret of liberty
“The secret of joy in work is contained in one word: excellence. To know how to do something well is to enjoy it
“Because of its tremendous solemnity death is the light in which great passions, both good and bad, become transparent, no longer limited by outward appearances
“Every man has his moral backside which he refrains from showing unless he has to and keeps covered as long as possible with the trousers of decorum
“The human heart has hidden treasures, in secret kept, in silence sealed; the thoughts, the hopes, the dreams, the pleasures, whose charms were broken if revealed
“As favor and riches forsake a man, we discover in him the foolishness they concealed, and which no one perceived before
“The personal life of every individual is based on secrecy, and perhaps it is partly for that reason that civilized man is so nervously anxious that personal privacy should be respected
““I have two luxuries to brood over in my walks, your loveliness and the hour of my death. O that I could have possession of them both in the same minute.
“I compare human life to a large mansion of many apartments, two of which I can only describe, the doors of the rest being as yet shut upon me
“I have discovered the secret of happiness - it is work, either with the hands or the head. The moment I have something to do, the draughts are open and my chimney draws, and I am happy