The very greatest things - great thoughts, discoveries, inventions - have usually been nurtured in hardship, often pondered over in sorrow, and at length established with difficulty.

Labour may be a burden and a chastisement, but it is also an honour and a glory. Without it, nothing can be accomplished.

Sympathy is the golden key that unlocks the hearts of others.

Like men, nations are purified and strengthened by trials.

Childhood is like a mirror, which reflects in after life the images first presented to it.

It will generally be found that men who are constantly lamenting their ill luck are only reaping the consequences of their own neglect, mismanagement, and improvidence, or want of application.

National progress is the sum of individual industry, energy, and uprightness, as national decay is of individual idleness, selfishness, and vice.