False Friends: May we never have friends who, like shadows, keep close to us in the sunshine only to desert us in a cloudy day or in the night.
A Competence: May we never want bread to make a toast or a good cook to prepare it.
The Man we Love: He who thinks most good and speaks least ill of his neighbors.
Human Nature as the Best Study: He who is learned in books alone may know how some things ought to be, but he who reads men learns how things are.
Metaphysics the Noblest of the Sciences: "When a mon wha' kens naething aboot ony subject, takes a subject that nae mon kens onything aboot and explains it to anither mon still more ignorant—that's Metaphysics."
The Deeds of Men: The best interpreters of their motives.
Love and Affection: The necessary basis for a happy life.
Charity: A mantle of heavenly weaving used to cover the faults of our neighbors.
Charitable Allowances: May our eyes be no keener when we look upon the faults of others than when we survey our own.
Cheerful Courage: "May this be our maxim whene'er we are twirled, A fig for the cares of this whirl-a-gig world."