Experience teaches slowly, and at the cost of mistakes.

Men think to mend their condition by a change of circumstances. They might as well hope to escape from their shadows.

Instruction does not prevent wasted time or mistakes; and mistakes themselves are often the best teachers of all.

Carelessness is inexcusable, and merits the inevitable sequence.

The practical effect of a belief is the real test of its soundness. Where we find a heroic life appearing as the uniform fruit of a particular mode of opinion, it is childish to argue in the face of fact that the result ought to have been different.

True greatness is the most ready to recognize and most willing to obey those simple outward laws which have been sanctioned by the experience of mankind.

To tell men that they cannot help themselves is to fling them into recklessness and despair.