Can we conceive what humanity would be if it did not know the flowers?

Our reason may prove what it will: our reason is only a feeble ray that has issued from Nature.

An obstacle is not a discouragement. It may become one, but only with our own consent. So long as we refuse to be discouraged, we cannot be discouraged.

Many a happiness in life, a many a disaster, is due to chance alone; but the peace within us can never be governed by chance.

Physical suffering apart, not a single sorrow exists that can touch us except through our thoughts.

The decent moderation of today will be the least of human things tomorrow. At the time of the Spanish Inquisition, the opinion of good sense and of the good medium was certainly that people ought not to burn too large a number of heretics; extreme and unreasonable opinion obviously demanded that they should burn none at all.

Happiness will never be any greater than the idea we have of it.