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."

"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."

"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 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."

"'Where there is a will there is a way,' is an old and true saying. He who resolves upon doing a thing, by that very resolution often scales the barriers to it, and secures its achievement."