Engage with reason so misfortune doesn't contend with you. - Baltasar Gracián

Life is arduous without any breaks, like a long journey without any inns. Learned variety makes it pleasant. Spend the first part of a fine life in communication with the dead. We are born to know and to know ourselves, and books reliably turn us into people. Spend the second part with the living: see and examine all that's good in the world. Not everything can be found in one country; the universal Father has shared out his gifts and sometimes endows the ugliest with the most. Let the third stage be spent entirely with yourself: the ultimate happiness, to philosophize.

The one rule for pleasing: whet the appetite, keep people hungry.

Imagination travels faster than sight. Deceit comes in through the ears, but usually leaves through the eyes.