Dramatists have always made fun of the friendship between a husband and his wife's lover. But is it so comic? These two men undoubtedly have more to … - André Maurois

He who allows himself to be devoured will be devoured, and he will die before he has done his work. The man who has an ardent passion for work asks of others only what will help him. He shirks no work that ca be of use and that he ca do well, but he flies from conversations, meetings, talkfests, studios full of phrase-makers. Goethe even advises such a man to ignore daily events if he cannot do anything about them. If we spend an hour every morning informing ourselves about distant wars and another hour lamenting their possible consequences, when we are neither ministers, generals, nor journalists, nor anything, we render no service to our country and we waste the most irrecoverable of our possessions: our own short life.

Great things are not accomplished with physical strength and agility, says Cicero, but through consultation, authority, and the mature wisdom which old age, far from lacking, is endowed with abundantly.

In the misfortunes of our best friends, we always find something not unpleasing.