Never despair; but if you do, work on in despair.
Never read a book through merely because you have begun it.
The first precept was never to accept a thing as true until I knew it as such without a single doubt.
I like weights. You know where you stand with them. Well, sometimes you're lying under them, trying not to let them crush you, but you see, you KNOW they'd crush you if they could. There's honesty.
A tactical retreat is not a bad response to a surprise assault, you know. First you survive. Then you choose your own ground. Then you counterattack.
We think in generalities, but we live in detail.
Truth has beauty, power and necessity.