While all other things are uncertain, evanescent, and ephemeral, virtue alone is fixed with deep roots; it can neither be overthrown by any violence or moved from its place.
I cannot find a faithful message-bearer," he wrote to his friend, the scholar Atticus. "How few are they who are able to carry a rather weighty letter without lightening it by reading.
But as to the affection which anyone may have for us, it is the first demand of duty that we do most for him who loves us most; but we should measure affection, not like youngsters, by the ardour of its passion, but rather by its strength and constancy.