Thinking is easy, said Goethe, acting is difficult, and to put one's thought into action is the most difficult thing in the world. And Tolstoy: It is… - André Maurois

It is a fairly consistent law of humanity that men spend about half their lives at war. A Frenchman, called Lapouge, calculated that from the year 1100 to the year 1500, England had been 207 years at war and 212 years from 1500 to 1900. In France the corresponding figures would be 192 and 181 years. According to that same man Lapouge, nineteen million men are killed in war every century. Their blood would fill three million barrels of 180 liters each, and would feed a fountain of blood running 700 liters an hour from the beginning of history.

It is often difficult to fill an active healthy man's leisure. He is bored when not working; he paces the floor like a caged animal and sinks naturally into vices which are merely the means of getting numberless vivid sensations from his body with which to fill his empty hours. Modern civilization, with its inventions and machines, has increased the number of these hours, and we must learn how to use them.

He who has found a good wife has found great happiness, but a quarrelsome woman is like a roof that lets in the rain.