“No distance of place or lapse of time can lessen the friendship of those who are thoroughly persuaded of each other’s worth.”

Defining enduring friendship as confidence in another person’s character · Prose, The Doctor

• Character
• Friendship
• Time

“A good man and a wise man may at times be angry with the world, at times grieved for it; but be sure no man was ever discontented with the world if he did his duty in it.”

Connecting lasting contentment with purposeful conduct rather than circumstance · Letter to Grosvenor C. Bedford, 31 March 1804

• Character
• Duty
• Wisdom

“A fastidious taste is like a squeamish appetite; the one has its origin in some disease of the mind, as the other has in some ailment of the stomach.”

Using comic analogy to question excessive refinement of taste · Prose, The Doctor

• Criticism
• Humour
• Mind