There are men whom a happy ...

There are men whom a happy disposition, a strong desire of glory and esteem, inspire with the same love for justice and virtue which men in general have for riches and honors. But the number of these men is so small that I only mention them in honor of humanity.
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 Claude Adrien Helvetius

Quotes from the same author

Must we, under the happy hope of a false tranquility, sacrifice to the people in power the public welfare, and under vain pretence of preserving the peace, abandon the empire to robbers who would plunder it
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 Claude Adrien Helvetius
Genius is nothing but continued attention.
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 Claude Adrien Helvetius
When a miser contents himself with giving nothing, and saving what he has got, and is in other respects guilty of no injustice, he is, perhaps, of all bad men the least injurious to society; the evil he does is properly nothing more than the omission of the good he might do. If, of all the vices, avarice is the most generally detested, it is the effect of an avidity common to all men; it is because men hate those from whom they can expect nothing. The greedy misers rail at sordid misers.
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 Claude Adrien Helvetius
Every man without passions has within him no principle of action, nor motive to act.
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 Claude Adrien Helvetius
Pleasure and pain are the only springs of action in man, and always will be.
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 Claude Adrien Helvetius