An intense anticipation itself transforms possibility into reality; our desires being often but precursors of the things which we are capable of performing.

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.

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

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

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.

Idleness of the mind is much worse than that of the body: wit, without employment, is a disease - the rust of the soul, a plague, a hell itself.