“Nothing contributes so much to tranquillize the mind as a steady purpose- a point on which the soul can focus its intellectual eye”

“nothing contributes so much to tranquilize the mind as a steady purpose”

“These reflections have dispelled the agitation with which I began my letter and I feel my heart glow with an enthusiasm whcih elevates me to heaven, for nothing contributes so much to tranqualize the mind as a steady purpose - a point on which the soul may fix its intellectual eye.”

“For nothing contributes so much to tranquilize the ind as a steady purpose -- a point on which the soul may fix its intellectual eye.”

“A human being in perfection ought always to preserve a calm and peaceful mind and never to allow passion or a transitory desire to disturb his tranquility. I do not think that the pursuit of knowledge is an exception to this rule. If the study to which you apply yourself has a tendency to weaken your affections and to destroy your taste for those simple pleasures in which no alloy can possibly mix, then that study is certainly unlawful, that is to say, not befitting the human mind. If this rule were always observed; if no man allowed any pursuit whatsoever to interfere with the tranquillity of his domestic affections, Greece had not been enslaved, Caesar would have spared his country, America would have been discovered more gradually, and the empires of Mexico and Peru had not been destroyed.”

“Nothing is so painful to the human mind as a great and sudden change.”

“Her countenance was all expression; her eyes were not dark but impenetrably deep; you seemed to discover space after space in their intellectual glance.”