Happiness does not consist in self-love....

The private interest of the individual would not be sufficiently provided for by reasonable and cool self-love alone therefore the appetites and passions are placed within as a guard and further security, without which it would not be taken due care of.

Compassion is a call, a demand of nature, to relieve the unhappy as hunger is a natural call for food.

Every man hath a general desire of his own happiness and likewise a variety of particular affections, passions, and appetites to particular external objects.

It were a real increase of human happiness, could all young men from the age of nineteen be covered under barrels, or rendered otherwise invisible and there left to follow their lawful studies and callings, till they emerged, sadder and wiser, at the age of twenty-five.

Oh, if I had been loved at the age of seventeen, what an idiot I would be today. Happiness is like smallpox: if you catch it too soon, it can completely ruin your constitution.

You get to a certain age where you prepare yourself for happiness. Sometimes you never remember to actually get happy.

I learned from a very young age that if I pursued the things that truly excited me, that they would reward in more important ways, like happiness.