Give me the boy who rouses when he is praised, who profits when he is encouraged and who cries when he is defeated. Such a boy will be fired by ambition; he will be stung by reproach, and animated by preference; never shall I apprehend any bad consequences from idleness in such a boy.

Virtue, though she gets her beginning from nature, yet receives her finishing touches from learning.

It is the nurse that the child first hears, and her words that he will first attempt to imitate.

We excuse our sloth under the pretext of difficulty.

God, that all-powerful Creator of nature and architect of the world, has impressed man with no character so proper to distinguish him from other animals, as by the faculty of speech.

The soul languishing in obscurity contracts a kind of rust, or abandons itself to the chimera of presumption; for it is natural for it to acquire something, even when separated from any one.

From writing rapidly it does not result that one writes well, but from writing well it results that one writes rapidly.