Progress, of the best kind, is comparatively slow

Persons with comparatively moderate powers will accomplish much, if they apply themselves wholly and indefatigably to one thing at a time.

Whatever is done for men takes away from the stimulus and necessity of doing things for themselves. The value of legislative as an agent in human advancement has been much over-estimated. No laws, however stringent, can make the idle industrious, the thriftless provident or the drunken sober.

Energy enables a man to force his way through irksome drudgery and dry details and caries him onward and upward to every station in life.

Riches do not constitute any claim to distinction. It is only the vulgar who admire riches as riches.

True politeness is consideration for the opinions of others. It has been said of dogmatism that it is only puppyism come to its full growth; and certainly the worst form this quality can assume is that of opinionativeness and arrogance.

He who never made a mistake, never made a discovery.