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

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

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

Example teaches better than precept. It is the best modeler of the character of men and women. To set a lofty example is the richest bequest a man can leave behind him.

The experience gathered from books, though often valuable, is but the nature of learning; whereas the experience gained from actual life is one of the nature of wisdom.

The reason why so little is done, is generally because so little is attempted.

He who labours not, cannot enjoy the reward of labour.