A person may cause evil to others not only by his actions but by his inaction, and in either case he is justly accountable to them for the injury.

The ne plus ultra of wickedness ... is embodied in what is commonly presented to mankind as the creed of Christianity.

It would not be easy even for an unbeliever, to find a better translation of the rule of virtue from the abstract into the concrete, than to endeavor so to live that Christ would approve our life.

Ask yourself whether you are happy, and you cease to be so.

The art of music is good, for the reason, among others, that it produces pleasure; but what proof is it possible to give that pleasure is good? If, then, it is asserted that there is a comprehensive formula, including all things which are in themselves good, and that whatever else is good, is not so as an end, but as a mean, the formula may be accepted or rejected, but is not a subject of what is commonly understood by proof.

There is one plain rule of life. Try thyself unweariedly till thou findest the highest thing thou art capable of doing, faculties and outward circumstances being both duly considered, and then do it.

Men might as well be imprisoned, as excluded from the means of earning their bread.