 Enthusiasm... the sustaining power of all great action. |
| Man cannot aspire if he looked down; if he rise, he must look up. |
| Wisdom and understanding can only become the possession of individual men by travelling the old road of observation, attention, perseverance, and industry. |
| Labor is still, and ever will be, the inevitable price set upon everything which is valuable. |
| Lost wealth may be replaced by industry, lost knowledge by study, lost health by temperance or medicine, but lost time is gone forever. |
| Practical wisdom is only to be learned in the school of experience. Precepts and instruction are useful so far as they go, but, without the discipline of real life, they remain of the nature of theory only. |
| A place for everything, and everything in its place. |
| The very greatest things - great thoughts, discoveries, inventions - have usually been nurtured in hardship, often pondered over in sorrow, and at length established with difficulty. |
| The apprenticeship of difficulty is one which the greatest of men have had to serve. |
| Progress, of the best kind, is comparatively slow. Great results cannot be achieved at once; and we must be satisfied to advance in life as we walk, step by step. |
| The wise man... if he would live at peace with others, he will bear and forbear. |
| I'm as happy a man as any in the world, for the whole world seems to smile upon me! |
| 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. |
| Men who are resolved to find a way for themselves will always find opportunities enough; and if they do not find them, they will make them. |
| He who never made a mistake, never made a discovery. |
| We often discover what will do, by finding out what will not do; and probably he who never made a mistake never made a discovery. |
| The battle of life is, in most cases, fought uphill; and to win it without a struggle were perhaps to win it without honor. If there were no difficulties there would be no success; if there were nothing to struggle for, there would be nothing to be achieved. |
| It is energy - the central element of which is will - that produces the miracle that is enthusiasm in all ages. Everywhere it is what is called force of character and the sustaining power of all great action. |
| An intense anticipation itself transforms possibility into reality; our desires being often but precursors of the things which we are capable of performing. |
| The reason why so little is done, is generally because so little is attempted. |
