“If we opened our minds to enjoyment, we might find tranquil pleasures spread about us on every side. We might live with the angels that visit us on every sunbeam, and sit with the fairies who wait on every flower.”

Although genius always commands admiration, character most secures respect. The former is more the product of the brain, the latter of heart-power; and in the long run it is the heart that rules in life.

With will one can do anything.

When typhus or cholera breaks out, they tell us that Nobody is to blame. That terrible Nobody! How much he has to answer for. More mischief is done by Nobody than by all the world besides.

It is observed at sea that men are never so much disposed to grumble and mutiny as when least employed. Hence an old captain, when there was nothing else to do, would issue the order to “scour the anchor.

The noble people will be nobly ruled, and the ignorant and corrupt ignobly.

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 apprenticeship of difficulty is one which the greatest of men have had to serve.

The possession of a library, or the free use of it, no more constitutes learning, than the possession of wealth constitutes generosity.

Cecil’s dispatch of business was extraordinary, his maxim being, “The shortest way to do many things is to do only one thing at once.”

Alexander the Great valued learning so highly, that he used to say he was more indebted to Aristotle for giving him knowledge than to his father Philip for life.

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.

Purposes, like eggs, unless they be hatched into action, will run into rottenness.

The truest politeness comes of sincerity.

Luck whines; labor whistles.

He who labours not, cannot enjoy the reward of labour.

Childhood is like a mirror, which reflects in after life the images first presented to it.

The joy of discovery is certainly the liveliest that the mind of man can ever feel.

The better educated we are and the more acquired information we have, the better prepared shall we find our minds for making great and fruitful discoveries.

The minds that rise and become really great are never self-satisfied, but still continue to strive.

My advice to any young person at the beginning of their career is to try to look for the mere outlines of big things with their fresh, untrained and unprejudiced mind.

Could we but rightly comprehend the mind of man, nothing would be impossible to us upon the earth.

The mind is like the wind. You’re trying to stop the wind, dressed as a kite. How are you going to do it?

Feeling alone guides the mind.

Your heart is the light of this world. Don’t cover it with your mind.