There is more both of beauty and of raison d'etre in the works of nature- than in those of art.

In the works of Nature, purpose, not accident, is the main thing.

It is the repeated performance of just and temperate actions that produces virtue.

Modesty is hardly to be described as a virtue. It is a feeling rather than a disposition. It is a kind of fear of falling into disrepute.

Where perception is, there also are pain and pleasure, and where these are, there, of necessity, is desire.

He who confers a benefit on anyone loves him better than he is beloved.

It belongs to small-mindedness to be unable to bear either honor or dishonor, either good fortune or bad, but to be filled with conceit when honored and puffed up by trifling good fortune, and to be unable to bear even the smallest dishonor and to deem any chance failure a great misfortune, and to be distressed and annonyed at everything. Moreover the small-minded man is the sort of person to call all slights an insult and dishonor, even those that are due to ignorance or forgetfulness. Small-mindedness is accompanied by pettiness, querulousness, pessimism and self-abasement.