We give our best affections to the beautiful, only our second best to the useful.
The life even of a just man is a round of petty frauds; that of a knave a series of greater. We degrade life by our follies and vices, and then complain that the unhappiness which is only their accompaniment is inherent in the constitution of things.
The beauty seen is partly in him who sees it.
Cheerfulness is an offshoot of goodness and of wisdom.
Earnestness is the devotion of all the faculties.
Qualities not regulated run into their opposites. Economy before competence is meanness after it. Therefore economy is for the poor; the rich may dispense with it.