Prosperity is the touchstone of virtue; for it is less difficult to bear misfortunes than to remain uncorrupted by pleasure.

Good fortune tests a character more searchingly than trouble does. Hard times narrow the options and often bring out the best in people, because there is little room to be anything but decent. Comfort and success widen them, remove the friction, and quietly ask whether your standards were principles or simply constraints you had not tested.

When things are going well, that is the moment to be deliberate rather than relaxed. Keep the promises you made when you needed them kept, stay reachable to the people who knew you before, and notice the first time you excuse something in yourself because the results are good. That first excuse is the one to refuse.