“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.”

Fortune has often been blamed for her blindness; but fortune is not so blind as men are. Those who look into practical life will find that fortune is usually on the side of the industrious, as the winds and waves are on the side of the best navigators.

Politeness goes far, yet costs nothing.

Obedience, submission, discipline, courage–these are among the characteristics which make a man.

Labor is still, and ever will be, the inevitable price set upon everything which is valuable.

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

Self-respect is the noblest garment with which a man can clothe himself, the most elevating feeling with which the mind can be inspired.

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.

Hope is like the sun, which, as we journey toward it, casts the shadow of our burden behind us.

National progress is the sum of individual industry, energy, and uprightness, as national decay is of individual idleness, selfishness, and vice.

The brave man is an inspiration to the weak, and compels them, as it were, to follow him.

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

Any number of depraved units cannot form a great nation.

There are many counterfeits of character, but the genuine article is difficult to be mistaken.

The cheapest of all things is kindness, its exercise requiring the least possible trouble and self-sacrifice. Win hearts, said Burleigh to Queen Elizabeth, and you have all men’s hearts and purses.

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.

Mere political reform will not cure the manifold evils which now afflict society. There requires a social reform, a domestic reform, an individual reform.