“As the happiness or real good of men consists in right action, and right action cannot be produced without right opinion, it behooves us, above all the things in this world, to take care that our opinions be according to the nature of things. The foundation of all virtue and happiness is thinking rightly. He who sees [that] an action is right, that is, naturally tending to good, and does it because of that tendency, he only is a moral man; and he alone is capable of that constant, durable, and invariable good.”
—Benjamin Franklin, Smyth 2:169. (1730.)