No laws, however stringent, can make the idle industrious, the thriftless provident, or the drunken sober.

Manners are the ornament of action.

Hope is like the sun, which, as we journey toward it, casts the shadow of our burden behind us.

All life is a struggle.... Under competition the lazy man is put under the necessity of exerting himself; and if he will not exert himself, he must fall behind. If he do not work, neither shall he eat.

Alexander the Great valued learning so highly, that he used to say he was more indebted to Aristotle for giving him knowledge than to his father Philip for life.

We learn wisdom from failure much more than from success. We often discover what will do, by finding out what will not do; and probably he who never made a mistake never made a discovery.

Wisdom and understanding can only become the possession of individual men by travelling the old road of observation, attention, perseverance, and industry.