“Progress however, 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.”

No laws, however stringent, can make the idle industrious, the thriftless provident, or the drunken sober.

Great men are always exceptional men; and greatness itself is but comparative. Indeed, the range of most men in life is so limited that very few have the opportunity of being great.

Those who have most to do, and are willing to work, will find the most time.

Help from without is often enfeebling in its effects, but help from within invariably invigorates.

Good sense, disciplined by experience and inspired by goodness, issues in practical wisdom.

Great men stamp their mind upon their age and nation.

Woman, above all other educators, educates humanly. Man is the brain, but woman is the heart, of humanity.

Like men, nations are purified and strengthened by trials.

It is not ease, but effort-not facility, but difficulty, makes men. There is, perhaps, no station in life in which difficulties have not to be encountered and overcome before any decided measure of success can be achieved.

There is no act, however trivial, but has its train of consequences.

We learn wisdom from failure much more than from success. 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.

It will generally be found that men who are constantly lamenting their ill luck are only reaping the consequences of their own neglect, mismanagement, and improvidence, or want of application.

The spirit of self-help is the root of all genuine growth in the individual.

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.

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.

You know, now that I come to think of it, the blizzard may be the best thing to happen to the American economy in 12 months.

The Scalia seat is defense. We’re not going to get any better than Justice Scalia. The best we can do is preserve constitutional victories like upholding the Second Amendment, like protecting religious liberty. But we’re not going to get any better.

The prizes go to those who meet emergencies successfully. And the way to meet emergencies is to do each daily task the best we can.

I tend to kind of try to use what’s in my environment to the best of my ability rather than seek out things that I don’t already have.

We Americans are the best informed people on earth as to the events of the last twenty-four hours.

It’s always best to stay out of other people’s divorces. And their civil wars.

War is at its best barbarism.

The best physician is also a philosopher.