The happiness which they meant was not a life of rapture, but moments of such, in an existence made up of few and transitory pains, many and various … - John Stuart Mill

Truth, in the great practical concerns
of life, is so much a question of the reconciling and
combining of opposites, that very few have minds sufficiently
capacious and impartial to make the adjustment with an
approach to correctness, and it has to be made by the rough
process of a struggle between combatants fighting under
hostile banners.

It is not because men’s desires are strong that they act ill; it is because their consciences are weak. There is no natural connection between strong impulses and a weak conscience. The natural connection is the other way. To say that one person’s desires and feelings are stronger and more various than those of another, is merely to say that he has more of the raw material of human nature, and is therefore capable, perhaps of more evil, but certainly of more good. Strong impulses are but another name for energy.

No one can be a great thinker who does not recognise, that as a thinker it is his first duty to follow his intellect to whatever conclusions it may lead.