“It is no small mischief to a boy, that many of the best years of his life should be devoted to the learning of what can never be of any real use to any human being. His mind is necessarily rendered frivolous and superficial by the long habit of attaching importance to words instead of things; to sound instead of sense.”
“Be you in what line of life you may, it will be amongst your misfortunes if you have not time properly to attend to pecuniary (monetary) matters. Want of attention to these matters has impeded the progress of science and of genius itself.”
“Another great evil arising from this desire to be thought rich; or rather, from the desire not to be thought poor, is the destructive thing which has been honored by the name of ''speculation''; but which ought to be called Gambling.”
“From a very early age I had imbibed the opinion that it was every man's duty to do all that lay in his power to leave his country as good as he had found it.”