“Never give more time to reading a book than to reflecting upon its contents.”

“Each lapse is like the letting fall of a ball of string which one is carefully winding up; a single slip undoes more than a great many turns will wind again.”

“Many parents as well as teachers refuse to place this responsibility upon children for fear of the mistakes that they will make. On account of this fear they make it as nearly as possible unnecessary for children to judge freely, by giving them arbitrary rules to follow, or by directing them exactly what they shall do each moment. This cultivates poor judgment by depriving children of the very practice that will make their judgments reliable; it prevents the school requirements from corresponding to those in life outside.”

“Never suffer an exception to occur till the new habit is securely rooted in your life.”

“There is one right thing for the student to do, that is, to develop the habit of weighing worths, of sensing the relative values of the facts that he meets.”

“Every person is bound to make many mistakes; but he will make far fewer when his ability to judge has been properly trained.”

“Living, in the case of animals, thus means getting on, and any ability, whether physical or intellectual, is of importance to the extent that it makes such getting on successful.”