Know then this truth, enough for man to know,
Virtue alone is happiness below.
—Pope.
An effort made with ourselves for the good of others, with the intention of pleasing God alone.—Bernardin de St. Pierre.
Good sense, good health, good conscience, and good fame,—all these belong to virtue, and all prove that virtue has a title to your love.—Cowper.
Our virtues live upon our incomes; our vices consume our capital.—J. Petit-Senn.
Do not be troubled because you have not great virtues. God made a million spears of grass where he made one tree. The earth is fringed and carpeted, not with forests, but with grasses. Only have enough of little virtues and common fidelities, and you need not mourn because you are neither a hero nor a saint.—Beecher.
Want.—How few our real wants, and how vast our imaginary ones!—Lavater.
We are ruined, not by what we really want, but by what we think we do; therefore never go abroad in search of your wants; if they be real wants, they will come home in search of you; for he that buys what he does not want, will soon want what he cannot buy.—Colton.
Where necessity ends, curiosity begins; and no sooner are we supplied with everything that nature can command, than we sit down to contrive artificial appetites.—Dr. Johnson.
Hundreds would never have known want if they had not first known waste.—Spurgeon.
Constantly choose rather to want less, than to have more.—Thomas à Kempis.