• Self-love, the spring of motion, acts the soul; Reason's comparing balance rules the whole. Man, but for that no action could attend, And, but for this, were active to no end: Fix'd like a plant on his peculiar spot, To draw nutrition, propagate, and rot; Or, meteor-like, flame lawless thro' the void, Destroying others, by himself destroy'd.

    Alexander Pope: Self-love, the spring of motion, acts the soul;
Reason's comparing balance rules the whole.
Man, but for that no action could attend,
And, but for this, were active to no end:
Fix'd like a plant on his peculiar spot,
To draw nutrition, propagate, and rot;
Or, meteor-like, flame lawless thro' the void,
Destroying others, by himself destroy'd.
    Alexander Pope (2012). “Essay on Man and Other Poems”, p.55, Courier Corporation