William, Will, Bill or Billy Matthews may refer to:
With the "civilized" person contentment is a myth. From the cradle to the grave they are forever longing and striving after something better, an indefinable something, some new object yet unattained.
Be methodical if you would succeed in business, or in anything. Have a work for every moment, and mind the moment's work.
Solitary reading will enable a man to stuff himself with information, but without conversation his mind will become like a pond without an outlet-a mass of unhealthy stag-nature. It is not enough to harvest knowledge by study; the wind of talk must winnow it and blow away the chaff. Then will the clear, bright grains of wisdom be garnered, for our own use or that of others.
One well-cultivated talent, deepened and enlarged, is worth one hundred shallow faculties.
The countenance may be rightly defined as the title page which heralds the contents of the human volume, but like other title pages, it sometimes puzzles, often misleads, and often says nothing to the purpose.
The same disappointments in life will chasten and refine one man's spirit, embitter another's.
There is one curious fact noticeable in regard to this thing called "luck," which is, that while it is made responsible for any turn of affairs that we feel to be discreditable to us, it rarely has credit for an opposite state of things; but, like most other faithful allies in victory, comes poorly off.
What lasting progress was ever made in social reformation, except when every step was insured by appeals to the understanding and the will?
Strive for excellence in your calling, but as a subsidiary to this: Do not fail to enrich your whole capital as man. To be a giant, and not a dwarf in your profession, you must always be growing. The man that has ceased to go up intellectually has begun to go down.
Stoutly as we may affirm that our disasters and vices are chargeable to luck, we never dream of ascribing our meritorious deeds, in the slightest degree to its agency. In such cases we quite unconsciously blink out of sight the magic power of the latter principle, so wondrous and all-controlling in its influence at other times, and coolly appropriate to ourselves not merely the lion's share, but the whole glory of our position.
Go to the desk. Stay at the desk. Thrive at the desk.
Talking, is a digestive process which is absolutely essential to the mental constitution of the man who devours many books.
The fullest instruction, and the fullest enjoyment are never derived from books, till we have ventilated the ideas thus obtained in free and easy chat with others.
Be methodical if you would succeed in business, or in anything. Have a work for every moment, and mind the moment's work. Whatever your calling, master all its bearings and details, its principles, instruments and applications. Method is essential if you would get through your work easily and with economy of time.
There is a wide difference between general acquaintance and companionship. You may salute a man and exchange compliments with him daily, yet know nothing of his character, his inmost tastes arid feelings.
The petty cares, the minute anxieties, the infinite littles which go to make up the sum of human experience, like the invisible granules of powder, give the last and highest polish to a character.
The smallest thing, well done, becomes artistic.
One wellcultivated talent, deepened and enlarged, is worth 100 shallow faculties. The first law of success in this day, when so many things are clamoring for attention, is concentration-to bend all the energies to one point, and to go directly to that point, looking neither to the right nor to the left.
Intercourse is after all man's best teacher. "Know thyself" is an excellent maxim; but even self-knowledge cannot be perfected in closets and cloisters--nor amid lake scenery, and on the sunny side of the mountains. Men who seldom mix with their fellow-creatures are almost sure to be one-sided--the victims of fixed ideas, that sometimes lead to insanity.
The easiest way for me to lose interests is to know too much of what I want to say before I begin.