Is bread the better for kneading? so is the heart. Knead it then by spiritual exercises; or God must knead it by afflictions.

Who is fit to govern others? He who governs himself. You might as well have said: nobody.

Christianity has carried civilization along with it, whithersoever it has gone; and, as if to show that the latter does not depend on physical causes, some of the countries the most civilized in the day's of Augustus are now in a state of hopeless barbarism.

People cannot go wrong, if you don't let them. They cannot go right, unless you let them.

Curiosity is little more than another name for Hope.

The praises of others may be of use in teaching us, not what we are, but what we ought to be.

Practical life teaches us that people may differ and that both may be wrong: it also teaches us that people may differ and both be right. Anchor yourself fast in the latter faith, or the former will sweep your heart away.