If virtue were its own reward it would no longer be a human quality but supernatural.
Vauvenargues.
“To achieve great things we must live as though we were never going to die.”
“There are those who are so scrupulously afraid of doing wrong that they seldom venture to do anything.”
“The greatest evil which fortune can inflict on men is to endow them with small talents and great ambitions.”
“Nothing but courage can guide life.”
“He who knows how to suffer everything can dare everything.”
“If anyone accuses me of contradicting myself I reply: Because I have been wrong once or oftener I do not aspire to be always wrong.”
“I see your point. It irks you to see anyone at all who is able to work permitted to live without working. But why do you consider work a virtue?”
“Those who have wisdom have all:Fools with all have nothing.”
“Virtue is harder to be got than knowledge of the world; and, if lost in a young man, is seldom recovered.”