To be happy, one must rid oneself of prejudice, be virtuous, healthy, and have a capacity for enjoyment and for passion.

love of learning is the most necessary passion ... in it lies our happiness. It's a sure remedy for what ails us, an unending source of pleasure.

Let us choose for ourselves our path in life, and let us try to strew that path with flowers.

Let us decide on the route that we wish to take to pass our life, and attempt to sow that route with flowers.

Self-love is always the mainspring, more or less concealed, of our actions; it is the wind which swells the sails, without which the ship could not go.

Maybe you are a poet and a dreamer, but don't you realize that those two species are extinct now?

No pessimist ever discovered the secrets of the stars or sailed to an uncharted land or opened a new heaven to the human spirit.

If for some reason you are unsure where to go, all you have to do is stand there looking lost, and within seconds a helpful New Yorker will approach to see if you have any "spare" change.

I'm not a big fan of those who are egotistical and so outspoken.

I'm the boss. I'm allowed to yell.

I'm living my dream job! My dream job is to be in the classroom.

If we should cease to be generous and charitable because another is sordid and ungrateful, it would be much in the power of vice to extinguish Christian virtues.

I'm supporting the charities that I supported during my lifetime, and I want to continue to do that.

The stirrings of morality emerge early in childhood. Toddlers spontaneously offer toys and help to others and try to comfort people they see in distress.

I am not among those who fear the people. They, and not the rich, are our dependence for continued freedom.