The obscurity of a writer is generally in proportion to his incapacity.

It is much easier to try one's hand at many things than to concentrate one's powers on one thing.

Consequently the student who is devoid of talent will derive no more profit from this work than barren soil from a treatise on agriculture.

He who speaks evil only differs from his who does evil in that he lacks opportunity.

Study depends on the goodwill of the student, a quality that cannot be secured by compulsion.

An evil-speaker differs from an evil-doer only in the want of opportunity.

For it would have been better that man should have been born dumb, nay, void of all reason, rather than that he should employ the gifts of Providence to the destruction of his neighbor.