The mind is but a barren soil; a soil which is soon exhausted, and will produce no crop, or only one, unless it be continually fertilized and enriched with foreign matter.

Nothing is denied to well-directed labor.

The value and rank of every art is in proportion to the mental labor employed in it, or the mental pleasure in producing it.

Common observation and a plain understanding is the source of all art.

But young men have not only this frivolous ambition of being thought masters of execution, inciting them on the one hand, but also their natural sloth tempting them on the other. They are terrified at the prospect before them, of the toil required to attain exactness. The impetuosity of youth is disgusted at the slow approaches of a regular siege, and desires, from mere impatience of labour, to take the citadel by storm. They wish to find some shorter path to excellence, and hope to obtain the reward of eminence by other means, than those which the indispensable rules of art have prescribed.

It is but a poor eloquence which only shows that the orator can talk.

Few have been taught to any purpose who have not been their own teachers.