Men, even when alone, lighten their labors by song, however rude it may be.

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

To my mind the boy who gives least promise is one in whom the critical faculty develops in advance of the imagination.

That which offends the ear will not easily gain admission to the mind.

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.

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.

One thing, however, I must premise, that without the assistance of natural capacity, rules and precepts are of no efficacy.