Society having ordained certain customs, men are bound to obey the law of society, and conform to its harmless orders. - William Makepeace Thackeray

Try to frequent the company of your betters. In books and life that is the most wholesome society; learn to admire rightly; the great pleasure of life is that. Note what the great men admired; they admired great things: narrow spirits admire basely, and worship meanly.

In a word, in adversity she was the best of comforters, in good fortune the most troublesome of friends...

Sure, love vincit omnia; is immeasurably above all ambition, more precious than wealth, more noble than name. He knows not life who knows not that: he hath not felt the highest faculty of the soul who hath not enjoyed it.