Has he therefore outwitted the law? Inasmuch as he carries the malignity and the lie with him, he so far deceases from nature.Neither can it be said, on the other hand, that the gain of rectitude must be bought by any loss. There is no penalty to virtue; no penalty to wisdom; they are proper additions of being.The soul refuses limits, and always affirms an Optimism, never a Pessimism.Our instinct uses "more" and "less" in application to man, of the presence of the soul, and not of its absence; the brave man is greater than the coward; the true, the benevolent, the wise, is more a man, and not less, than the fool and knave.But all the good of nature is the soul's, and may be had, if paid for in nature's lawful coin, that is, by labor which the heart and the head allow.I do not wish more external goods, — neither possessions, nor honors, nor powers, nor persons.Herein I rejoice with a serene eternal peace. I contract the boundaries of possible mischief. I learn the wisdom of St. Bernard, — "Nothing can work me damage except myself; the harm that I sustain I carry about with me, and never am a real sufferer but by my own fault."
Ralph Waldo Emerson