Every man has obligations which belong to his station. Duties extend beyond obligations, and direct the affections, desires, and intentions, as well as the actions.

There is a mask of theory over the whole face of nature.

Every failure is a step to success. Every detection of what is false directs us towards what is true: every trial exhausts some tempting form of error.

In order that the facts obtained by observation and experiment may be capable of being used in furtherance of our exact and solid knowledge, they must be apprehended and analysed according to some Conceptions which, applied for this purpose, give distinct and definite results, such as can be steadily taken hold of and reasoned from.

Hence no force, however great, can stretch a cord, however fine, into a horizontal line which is accurately straight: there will always be a bending downwards.

According to the technical language of old writers, a thing and its qualities are described as subject and attributes; and thus a man's faculties and acts are attributes of which he is the subject. The mind is the subject in which ideas inhere. Moreover, the man's faculties and acts are employed upon external objects; and from objects all his sensations arise. Hence the part of a man's knowledge which belongs to his own mind, is subjective: that which flows in upon him from the world external to him, is objective.

Gold and iron at the present day, as in ancient times, are the rulers of the world; and the great events in the world of mineral art are not the discovery of new substances, but of new and rich localities of old ones.