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.

The shortest way to do many things is to do only one thing at once.

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

The principal industrial excellence of the English people lay in their capacity of present exertion for a distant object.

Life will always be to a large extent what we ourselves make it.

Purposes, like eggs, unless they be hatched into action, will run into rottenness.

The duty of helping one's self in the highest sense involves the helping of one's neighbors.