Ask yourself whether you are happy and you cease to be so.

Unquestionably it is possible to do without happiness; it is done involuntarily by nineteen-twentieths of mankind.

That a thing is unnatural ... is no argument for its being blamable; since the most criminal actions are, to a being like man, not more unnatural than most of the virtues.

He who knows only his own side of the case, knows little of that.

In the human mind, one-sidedness has always been the rule, and many-sidedness the exception. Hence, even in revolutions of opinion, one part of the truth usually sets while another rises.

All good things which exist are the fruits of originality.

Originality is the one thing which unoriginal minds cannot feel the use of.

The spirit of improvement is not always a spirit of liberty, for it may aim at forcing improvements on an unwilling people.

A person's taste is as much his own peculiar concern as his opinion or his purse.

Mankind are greater gainers by suffering each other to live as seems good to themselves, than by compelling each to live as seems good to the rest.