The greatness of common sense, and its title to reverence, appear in this, that it deals with vast complexity, that is, with the innumerable elements of a situation. Common sense discerns and judges a path through this knotted and tangled maze.

Meditation ... must be power of will and strength of attention, being like a flight to great heights wherein wings must be plied hard though joyfully.

Luck, good or bad, is the invisible play of mind upon affairs, the effect of mental aptitudes and habits which are not in sight, but which work and bring forth their due issues.

Now, if we understand what unlucky persons are, we shall see that they are to be shunned, or that we are to consort with them only out of kindness or from sympathy, but without joining our interests with theirs; for they are persons who are not harmonious with the condition of things around them, and are as much at issue with life as a bird who should try to live in the water, or a fish to float in the air.

An enemy will train us in watchfulness; for if he be wary to seize on every error and trip us, we shall be more heedful to expose nothing, and this will drive us to prudence and thoughtfulness.

Meditation is first quietness. We live in a great din. It is well to see (for who sees it not will have but narrow sympathies and understand little that occurs around him) that the noise is often a noble uproar, "deep calling unto deep," the clamor of wonderful machinery, of great labors, of human struggles, of heroes' voices. But storms, though grand, must sink if the sea is to show the stars.

We have great power to see the truth when the truth is all we wish to see; but what is easier than to credit what we desire? and can a man deceive anyone so easily as himself?