«Ordinary people think that talent must be always on its own level and that it arises every morning like the sun, rested and refreshed, ready to draw from the same storehouse / always open, always full, always abundant / new treasures that it will heap up on those of the day before; such people are unaware that, as in the case of all mortal things, talent has its increase and decrease, and that independently of the career it takes, like everything that breathes... it undergoes all the accidents of health, of sickness, and of the dispositions of the soul / its gaiety or its sadness. As with our perishable flesh. talent is obliged constantly to keep guard over itself, to combat, and to keep perpetually on the alert amid the obstacles that witness the exercise of its singular power.»

«I've learned from experience that the greater part of our happiness or misery depends on our dispositions and not on our circumstances.»

«But the power of instruction is seldom of much efficacy, except in those happy dispositions where it is almost superfluous»

«A desire to be observed, considered, esteemed, praised, beloved, and admired by his fellows is one of the earliest as well as the keenest dispositions discovered in the heart of man.»

«It must be that evil communications corrupt good dispositions.»

«The mind is bound by the three dispositions - the three modes of Maya.»

«Never suppose that in any possible situation or under any circumstances that it is best for you to do a dishonorable thing however slightly so it may appear to you. Encourage all your virtuous dispositions, and exercise them whenever an opportunity a»

«Learning is, in too many cases, but a foil to common sense; a substitute for true knowledge. Books are less often made use of as ''spectacles'' to look at nature with, than as blinds to keep out its strong light and shifting scenery from weak eyes and indolent dispositions. The learned are mere literary drudges.»