It is not that pearls fetch a high price because men have dived for them; but on the contrary, men have dived for them because they fetch a high price.

Geologists complain that when they want specimens of the common rocks of a country, they receive curious spars; just so, historians give us the extraordinary events and omit just what we want,--the every-day life of each particular time and country.

When any person of really eminent virtue becomes the object of envy, the clamor and abuse by which he is assailed is but the sign and accompaniment of his success in doing service to the public. And if he is a truly wise man, he will take no more notice of it than the moon does of the howling of the dogs. Her only answer to them is to shine on.

It is generally true that all that is required to make men unmindful of what they owe to God for any blessing, is, that they should receive that blessing often and regularly.

A man will never change his mind if he have no mind to change.

Trust, therefore, for the overcoming of a difficulty, not to long-continued study after you have once become bewildered, but to repeated trials at intervals.

Men first make up their minds (and the smaller the mind the sooner made up), and then seek for the reasons; and if they chance to stumble upon a good reason, of course they do not reject it. But though they are right, they are only right by chance.