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the great art of life is to moderate our passions.
Objects of affection are like other belongings. We must love them enough to enrich our lives while we have them—not enough to impoverish our lives when they are gone.
the secret of happiness lies in knowing where to stop.
What does not satisfy when we find it, was not the thing we were desiring.
if the feet have been put right the hands and the head will come right sooner or later. It won’t work the other way.’
Do you not know how it is with love? First comes delight: then pain: then fruit. And then there is joy of the fruit, but that is different again from the first delight. And mortal lovers must not try to remain at the first step: for lasting passion is the dream of a harlot and from it we wake in despair. You must not try to keep the raptures: they have done their work. Manna kept, is worms.
‘Do not confuse Repentance with Disgust: for the one comes from the Landlord and the other from the Enemy.’
Fighting one vice with another is about the most dangerous strategy there is.
Their labour-saving devices multiply drudgery; their aphrodisiacs make them impotent: their amusements bore them: their rapid production of food leaves half of them starving, and their devices for saving them have banished leisure from their country.
