The sum of the whole is plainly this: The nature o...

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.

Happiness does not consist in self-love.

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.

He has a profound respect for old age. Especially when it's bottled.

There was no respect for youth when I was young, and now that I am old, there is no respect for age, I missed it coming and going.

I've an enormous respect for my mother who at the age of 39 raised three children, and I grew up with my grandmother in the household. And so it was a really strong household of women - my poor brother! It was great growing up with so many generations of women.

The older generation had greater respect for land than science. But we live in an age when science, more than soil, has become the provider of growth and abundance. Living just on the land creates loneliness in an age of globality.