To know what you prefer instead of humbly saying Amen to what the world tells you ought to prefer is to have kept your soul alive. To forget oneself is to be happy. To be wholly devoted to some intellectual exercise is to have succeeded in life. To be idle requires a strong sense of personal identity. There is no duty we so much underrate as the duty of being happy. By being happy we sow anonymous benefits upon the world. In marriage, a man becomes slack and selfish, and undergoes a fatty degeneration of his moral being. Marriage is like life - it is a field of battle, not a bed of roses. It is better to lose health like a spendthrift than to waste it like a miser. It is one thing to mortify curiosity, another to conquer it. It is the mark of a modest man to accept his friendly circle ready-made from the hands of opportunity. | 
