One well-cultivated talent, deepened and enlarged, is worth one hundred shallow faculties.

The same disappointments in life will chasten and refine one man's spirit, embitter another's.

The difficulties, hardships and trials of life, the obstacles... are positive blessings. They knit the muscles more firmly, and teach self-reliance.

What lasting progress was ever made in social reformation, except when every step was insured by appeals to the understanding and the will?

Be methodical if you would succeed in business, or in anything. Have a work for every moment, and mind the moment's work. Whatever your calling, master all its bearings and details, its principles, instruments and applications. Method is essential if you would get through your work easily and with economy of time.

The easiest way for me to lose interests is to know too much of what I want to say before I begin.

As frost, raised to its utmost intensity, produces the sensation of fire, so any good quality, overwrought and pushed to excess, turns into its own contrary.