No justification of virtue will enable a man to be virtuous. Without the aid of trained emotions the intellect is powerless against the animal organism. I had sooner play cards against a man who was quite skeptical about ethics, but bred to believe that ‘a gentleman does not cheat’, than against an irreproachable moral philosopher who had been brought up among sharpers.

Our passions are not too strong, they are too weak. We are far too easily pleased.

Has this world been so kind to you that you should leave with regret? There are better things ahead than any we leave behind.

Since it is so likely that (children) will meet cruel enemies, let them at least have heard of brave knights and heroic courage. Otherwise you are making their destiny not brighter but darker.

I never see why we should do anything unless it is either a duty or a pleasure! Life's short enough without filling up hours unnecessarily

the Divine Nature wounds and perhaps destroys us merely by being what it is.

Really great moral teachers never do introduce new moralities: it is quacks and cranks who do that.