and do at his best. A noble life put fairly on record acts like an
inspiration to others.--SAMUEL SMILES.

Biography, especially the biography of the great and good, who have
risen by their own exertions from poverty and obscurity to eminence
and usefulness, is an inspiring and ennobling study. Its direct
tendency is to reproduce the excellence it records.--HORACE MANN.

To be ignorant of the lives of the most celebrated men of antiquity
is to continue in a state of childhood all our days.--PLUTARCH.


BOASTING.--Where there is much pretension, much has been borrowed;
nature never pretends.--LAVATER.

Where boasting ends, there dignity begins.--YOUNG.

A gentleman that loves to hear himself talk will speak more in a
minute than he will stand to in a month.--SHAKESPEARE.

Men of real merit, and whose noble and glorious deeds we are ready to
acknowledge, are yet not to be endured when they vaunt their own
actions.--ÆSCHINES.

The less people speak of their greatness the more we think of
it.--BACON.

Conceit, more rich in matter than in words,
Brags of his substance, not of ornament:
They are but beggars that can count their worth.