Read first the best books. The important thing for you is not how much you know, but the quality of what you know.

As an example of just how useless these philosophers are for any practice in life there is Socrates himself, the one and only wise man, according to the Delphic Oracle. Whenever he tried to do anything in public he had to break off amid general laughter. While he was philosophizing about clouds and ideas, measuring a flea's foot and marveling at a midge's humming, he learned nothing about the affairs of ordinary life.

Providence has decreed that those common acquisitions, money, gems, plate, noble mansions, and dominion, should be sometimes bestowed on the indolent and unworthy; but those things which constitute our true riches, and which are properly our own, must be procured by our own labor.

Bidden or unbidden, God is present.

Nowadays the rage for possession has got to such a pitch that there is nothing in the realm of nature, whether sacred or profane, out of which profit cannot be squeezed.

The main hope of a nation lies in the proper education of its youth

Before you sleep, read something that is exquisite, and worth remembering.