•The circumstances of our lives and the dispositions of our characters mainly determine the measure of happiness we enjoy, and mere argument about the causes of happiness and unhappiness can do little to affect them. •Happiness, indeed like health, is one of the things of which men rarely think except when it is impaired. •Man comes into the world with mental and moral characteristics which he can only very imperfectly influence, and a large proportion of the external circumstances of his life lie wholly or mainly beyond his control. •Heredity and Circumstance make us what we are. •It is the prerogative of man to be in a great degree a creature of his own making. •The will is nothing more than the last and strongest desire; or it is like a piece of iron surrounded by magnets and necessarily drawn by the most powerful; or like a wind-vane conscious of its own motion, but not conscious of the winds that are moving it. •The existence of a distinction between right and wrong, different from and higher than the distinction between pleasure and pain.
Posted on: Fri, 26 Sep 2014 17:05:40 +0000