The aim of the law is not to punish sins, but is to prevent certain external results. - Oliver Wendell Holmes

With all humility, I think, "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might." Infinitely more important than the vain attempt to love one's neighbor as one's self. If you want to hit a bird on the wing, you must have all your will in focus, you must not be thinking about yourself, and equally, you must not be thinking about your neighbor: you must be living in your eye on that bird. Every achievement is a bird on the wing.

Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.
“Most of my time is spent in doing as well as I can the work immediately at hand. One hopes that by doing quietly and without parade as solid work as one can when one is occupied, one makes the best contribution possible to one's state.

I have no respect for the passion of equality, which seems to me merely idealizing envy — I don't disparage envy but I don't accept it as legitimately my master.