The principle of all successful effort is to try to do not what is absolutely the best, but what is easily within our power, and suited for our temperament and condition.

Men have commonly more pleasure in the criticism which hurts than in that which is innocuous, and are more tolerant of the severity which breaks hearts and ruins fortunes than of that which falls impotently on the grave.

There is no climate, no place, and scarcely an hour, in which nature does not exhibit color which no mortal effort can imitate or approach. For all our artificial pigments are, even when seen under the same circumstances, dead and lightless beside her living color; nature exhibits her hues under an intensity of sunlight which trebles their brilliancy.

The greatest reward is not what we receive for our labor, but what we become by it.

That man is always happy who is in the presence of something which he cannot know to the full, which he is always going on to know.

God intends no man to live in this world without working, but it seems to me no less evident that He intends every man to be happy in his work.

The beginning and almost the end of all good law is that everyone shall work for their bread and receive good bread for their work.