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It is not, of course, the subject that is or isn't dull, but the quality of attention that we do or do not pay to it. Dull subjects are those we have failed.

William Matthews

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William Matthews
Dull
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One wellcultivated talent, deepened and enlarged, is worth 100 shallow faculties. The first law of success in this day, when so many things are clamoring for attention, is concentration-to bend all the energies to one point, and to go directly to that point, looking neither to the right nor to the left.
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Strive for excellence in your calling, but as a subsidiary to this: Do not fail to enrich your whole capital as man. To be a giant, and not a dwarf in your profession, you must always be growing. The man that has ceased to go up intellectually has begun to go down.
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God has so framed us as to make freedom of choice and action the very basis of all moral improvement, and all our faculties, mental and moral, resent and revolt against the idea of coercion.
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The difficulties, hardships and trials of life, the obstacles... are positive blessings. They knit the muscles more firmly, and teach self-reliance.
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Unless a man has trained himself for his chance, the chance will only make him ridiculous.
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As frost, raised to its utmost intensity, produces the sensation of fire, so any good quality, overwrought and pushed to excess, turns into its own contrary.
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The same disappointments in life will chasten and refine one man's spirit, embitter another's.
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One well-cultivated talent, deepened and enlarged, is worth one hundred shallow faculties.
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There is one curious fact noticeable in regard to this thing called luck, which is, that while it is made responsible for any turn of affairs that we feel to be discreditable to us, it rarely has credit for an opposite state of things but, like most other faithful allies in victory, comes poorly off.
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The countenance may be rightly defined as the title page which heralds the contents of the human volume, but like other title pages, it sometimes puzzles, often misleads, and often says nothing to the purpose.
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Be methodical if you would succeed in business, or in anything. Have a work for every moment, and mind the moment's work.
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What lasting progress was ever made in social reformation, except when every step was insured by appeals to the understanding and the will?
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We all have two childhoods, the unhappy one and the happy one.
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There is a wide difference between general acquaintance and companionship. You may salute a man and exchange compliments with him daily, yet know nothing of his character, his inmost tastes arid feelings.
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The petty cares, the minute anxieties, the infinite littles which go to make up the sum of human experience, like the invisible granules of powder, give the last and highest polish to a character.
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Criminals are opportunists. If you've got a booming market, they're going to get away with more fraud.
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Go to the desk. Stay at the desk. Thrive at the desk.
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The fullest instruction, and the fullest enjoyment are never derived from books, till we have ventilated the ideas thus obtained in free and easy chat with others.
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The smallest thing, well done, becomes artistic.
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Talking, is a digestive process which is absolutely essential to the mental constitution of the man who devours many books.
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