The spirit of self-help is the root of all genuine growth in the individual.

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

Commonplace though it may appear, this doing of one's duty embodies the highest ideal of life and character. There may be nothing heroic about it; but the common lot of men is not heroic.

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

The women of the poorer classes make sacrifices, and run risks, and bear privations, and exercise patience and kindness to a degree that the world never knows of, and would scarcely believe even if it did know.

It is a mistake to suppose that men succeed through success; they much oftener succeed through failures. Precept, study, advice, and example could never have taught them so well as failure has done.

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.