Cecil's dispatch of business was extraordinary, his maxim being, "The shortest way to do many things is to do only one thing at once."

Conscience is that peculiar faculty of the soul which may be called the religious instinct.

Knowledge conquered by labor becomes a possession -a property entirely our own.

The great lesson of biography is to show what man can be and do at his best. A noble life put fairly on record acts like an inspiration to others.

Stothard learned the art of combining colors by closely studying butterflies wings; he would often say that no one knew what he owed to these tiny insects. A burnt stick and a barn door served Wilkie in lieu of pencil and canvas.

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

Opportunities ... fall in the way of every man who is resolved to take advantage of them.