"Its matter was not new to me,..." - Quote by Charles Dickens

“You will profit by the failure, and will avoid it another time. I have done a similar thing myself, in construction, often. Every failure teaches a man something, if he will learn.”

“Subdue your appetites, my dears, and you've conquered human nature .”

“Poetry makes life what lights and music do the stage.”

“Each of us literally chooses, by his way of attending to things, what sort of universe he shall appear to himself to inhabit.”

“It is not the actions of others which trouble us (for those actions are controlled by their governing part), but rather it is our own judgments. Therefore remove those judgments and resolve to let go of your anger, and it will already be gone. How do you let go? By realizing that such actions are not shameful to you.”

“I have heard of a man lost in the woods and dying of famine and exhaustion at the foot of a tree, whose loneliness was relieved by the grotesque visions with which, owing to bodily weakness, his diseased imagination surrounded him, and which he believed to be real. So also, owing to bodily and mental health and strength, we may be continually cheered by a like but more normal and natural society, and come to know that we are never alone.”

“Routine is a ground to stand on, a wall to retreat to; we cannot draw on our boots without bracing ourselves against it.”

“Custom is second nature.”

“The strength of a man's virtue should not be measured by his special exertions, but by his habitual acts.”