Although genius always commands admiration, character most secures respect. The former is more the product of the brain, the latter of heart-power; and in the long run it is the heart that rules in life.

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.

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.

Lost wealth may be replaced by industry, lost knowledge by study, lost health by temperance or medicine, but lost time is gone forever.

An intense anticipation itself transforms possibility into reality; our desires being often but precursors of the things which we are capable of performing.

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

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.