It is no idle game, no farce to amuse and be forgotten.

It is a stern reality, fuller of duties than the sky of stars.

You cannot have too much of that yearning which we call aspiration, for, even though you do not attain your ideal, the efforts you make will bring nothing but blessing; while he who fails of attaining mere worldly goals is too often eaten up with the canker-worm of disappointed ambition.

To all will come a time when the love of glory will be seen to be but a splendid delusion, riches empty, rank vain, power dependent, and all outward advantages without inward peace a mere mockery of wretchedness.

The wisest men have taken care to uproot selfish ambition from their breasts.