If The Abuse Be Enormous, Nature Will

Most Minds Are The Slaves Of External Circumstances, And Conform To Any Hand That Undertakes To Mould Them.

Life Affords No Higher Pleasure Than That Of Surmounting Difficulties, Passing From One Step Of Success To Another, Forming New Wishes And Seeing Them Gratified.

Every Man Has Some Favorite Topic Of Conversation, On Which, By A Feigned Seriousness Of Attention, He May Be Drawn To Expatiate Without End.

Depend Upon It, Sir, It Is When You Come Close To A Man In Conservation That You Discover What His Real Abilities Are; To Make A Speech In A Public Assembly Is A Knack.

Men Who Have Flattered Themselves Into This Opinion Of Their Own Abilities, Look Down On All Who Waste Their Lives Over Books, As A Race Of Inferior Beings Condemned By Nature To Perpetual Pupilage, And Fruitlessly Endeavouring To Remedy Their Barrenness By Incessant Cultivation, Or Succour Their Feebleness By Subsidiary Strength. They Presume That None Would Be More Industrious Than They, If They Were Not More Sensible Of Deficiences; And Readily Conclude, That He Who Places No Confidence In His Own Powers Owes His Modesty Only To His Weakness.