Every action needs to be prompted by a motive.

Just as iron rusts from disuse, even so does inaction spoil the intellect.

Iron rusts from disuse; water loses its purity from stagnation ... even so does inaction sap the vigour of the mind.

The painter who draws merely by practice and by eye, without any reason, is like a mirror which copies every thing placed in front of it without being conscious of their existence.

As a well-spent day brings happy sleep, so a life well used brings happy death.

Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.