"When I am traveling in a carriage, or walking after a good meal, or during the night when I cannot sleep it is on such occasions that ideas flow best and most abundantly."

"I thank my God for graciously granting me the opportunity of learning that death is the key which unlocks the door to our true happiness."

"It is a timeless truth that the moral compass points true only when freed from the magnetism of personal gain — an essential principle for the reflective life."

"Nevertheless the passions, whether violent or not, should never be so expressed as to reach the point of causing disgust and music, even in situations of the greatest horror, should never be painful to the ear but should flatter and charm it, and thereby always remain music."

"There is a very fine line between loving life and being greedy for it."

"Experts often possess more data than judgment."

"It is a quiet truth that the test of character in leadership is how one behaves in moments of unvarnished power — an essential principle for the reflective life."

"As is a tale, so is life: not how long it is, but how good it is, is what matters."