Imitation Is The Highest Form

I Have Found By Experience That They Who Have Spent All Their Lives In Cities, Improve Their Talents But Impair Their Virtues; And Strengthen Their Minds But Weaken Their Morals.

True Goodness Is Not Without That Germ Of Greatness That Can Bear With Patience The Mistakes Of The Ignorant.

When All Moves Equally (says Pascal), Nothing Seems To Move As In A Vessel Under Sail; And When All Run By Common Consent Into Vice, None Appear To Do So. He That Stops First, Views As From A Fixed Point The Horrible Extravagance That Transports The Rest.

We Make A Goddess Of Fortune ... And Place Her In The Highest Heaven. But It Is Not Fortune That Is Exalted And Powerful, But We Ourselves That Are Abject And Weak.

The Truly Great Consider, First, How They May Gain The Approbation Of God, And, Secondly, That Of Their Own Conscience. Having Done This, They Would Then Willingly Conciliate The Good Opinion Of Their Fellow-men. But The Truly Little Reverse The Thing. The Primary Object With Them Is To Secure The Applause Of Their Fellow-men; And Having Effected This, The Approbation Of God And Their Own Conscience May Follow On As They Can.