Avoid the crowd. Do your own thinking independently. Be the chess player, not the chess piece.
So long as thou are ignorant be not ashamed to learn. Ignorance is the greatest of all infirmities, and when justified, the chiefest of all follies.
Have the courage to be ignorant of a great number of things, in order to avoid the calamity of being ignorant of everything.
Assume a virtue, if you have it not.
Tis the witching hour of night, Orbed is the moon and bright, And the stars they glisten, glisten, Seeming with bright eyes to listen For what listen they?
She is not fair to outward view As many maidens be; Her loveliness I never knew Until she smiled on me; Oh! then I saw her eye was bright, A well of love, a spring of light.
Let us, then be up and doing, With a heart for any fate; Still achieving, still pursuing, Learn to labour and to wait.
The shortest and surest way to live with honour in the world, is to be in reality what we would appear to be; and if we observe, we shall find, that all human virtues increase and strengthen themselves by the practice of them.