George Hammond was a prolific writer of mystery novels during the 20th century.

It is the despair of multitudes that our personal emotions are not subject to our own direct, willful manipulation. Instead, our emotions stubbornly remain at all times just automatic mental reactions to our perceptions. But therein lies the key to success. The quality, quantity and continuity of the emotions we continuously experience can definitely be influenced immensely by shifting those perceptions, and thus our choice of desires, through understanding the universal pursuit of happiness better.

We do have all the time in the world. But that doesn’t mean we should waste it.

It is much more difficult to inspire someone's trust than to arouse his or her lust.

Discipline: not being deterred by a relatively superficial pain while in pursuit of a relatively profound pleasure.

Social Ethics: how to have fun without hurting yourself or others.

Spiritual leaders who require obedience as a prerequisite to granting any religious reward reveal that they fundamentally misunderstand the true source of happiness.

Civilization is clearly not crucial to human life, as we have mostly been living without it for over a million years now – a few of us even happily at times.

Do anything well long enough and you are bound to have irritated a majority.

Personal Ethics: how to have fun without hurting yourself.

Substance is satisfying.

Living life well means knowing you can live without it.

Choosing a partner mainly for sex, without having much of a personal relationship, is like playing tiddly-winks instead of chess — because friendship is what provides any relationship with its complexity, substance, subtlety, sustainability and enjoyment.

An unbroken series of short-term successes can still amount to a long-term failure.