“Good and great are seldom in the same man. ”

“Happiness consists more in the small conveniences of pleasures that occur every day, than in great pieces of good fortune that happen but seldom to a man in the course of his life.”

“It is the greatest mistake to think that man is always one and the same. A man is never the same for long. He is continually changing. He seldom remains the same even for half an hour.”

“Human felicity is produced not as much by great pieces of good fortune that seldom happen as by little advantages that occur every day.”

“the great is seldom a deterrent to the mediocre”

“With man it is different. When he comes many of the larger animals instinctively leave the district entirely, seldom if ever to return; and thus it has always been with the great anthropoids. They flee man as man flees a pestilence.”