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He who has so little knowledge of human nature as to seek happiness by changing anything but his own disposition will waste his life in fruitless efforts.

Against eternal injustice, man must assert justice, and to protest against the universe of grief, he must create happiness.

Self-pity comes so naturally to all of us. The most solid happiness can be shaken by the compassion of a fool.

Scarcely anyone ever wants to be anybody else. However handicapped or unhappy he feels himself, he would not change places with other more fortunate mortals.

If a man be gloomy let him keep to himself. No one has the right to go croaking about society, or what is worse, looking as if he stifled grief.

To live by one man's will becomes the cause of all misery.

It contributes greatly towards a man's moral and intellectual health, to be brought into habits of companionship with individuals unlike himself, who care little for his pursuits, and whose sphere and abilities he must go out of himself to appreciate.

I don't pity any man who does hard work worth doing. I admire him. I pity the creature who does not work, at whichever end of the social scale he may regard himself as being.

Man is essentially a selfish creature. The differences in the degree with which this developed are infinite.

It is only a step from boredom to disillusionment, which leads naturally to self-pity, which in turn ends in chaos.