Perseverance is an active principle, and cannot continue to operate but under the influence of desire.

Study with desire is real activity; without desire it is but the semblance and mockery of activity.

I am most peremptorily of opinion against putting children extremely forward. If they desire it themselves, I would not balk them, for I love to attend to these unsophisticated indications. But otherwise, 'festina lente' is my maxim in education.

Woe to the man who is always busy - hurried in a turmoil of engagements, from occupation to occupation, and with no seasons interposed of recollection, contemplation and repose! Such a man must inevitably be gross and vulgar, and hard and indelicate - the sort of man with whom no generous spirit would desire to hold intercourse.

But Hercules himself must yield to odds; And many strokes, though with a little axe, Hews down and fells the hardest-timbered oak.

I am tied to the stake, and I must stand the course.