Surely human affairs would be far happier if the power in men to be silent were the same as that to speak.

The highest endeavor of the mind, and the highest virtue, it to understand things by intuition.

A free man thinks of nothing less than of death; and his wisdom is a meditation not on death but on life.

Love or hatred towards a thing, which we conceive to be free, must, other things being similar, be greater than if it were felt towards a thing acting by necessity.

Everything in nature is a cause from which there flows some effect.

After experience had taught me that all the usual surroundings of social life are vain and futile; seeing that none of the objects of my fears contained in themselves anything either good or bad, except in so far as the mind is affected by them, I finally resolved to inquire whether there might be some real good having power to communicate itself, which would affect the mind singly, to the exclusion of all else: whether, in fact, there might be anything of which the discovery and attainment would enable me to enjoy continuous, supreme, and unending happiness.

Happiness is a virtue, not its reward.