When we skim along the surface of history we see little but the rough barren rocks that rise out of it.

How deeply rooted must unbelief be in our hearts when we are surprised to find our prayers answered.

We look to our last sickness for repentance, unmindful that it is during a recovery men repent, not during a sickness.

The mind is like a trunk: if well-packed, it holds almost every thing; if ill-packed, next to nothing.

There is as much difference between good poetry and fine verses, as between the smell of a flower-garden and of a perfumer's shop.

The feeling is often the deeper truth, the opinion the more superficial one.

Instead of watching the bird as it flies above our heads, we chase his shadow along the ground; and, finding we cannot grasp it, we conclude it to be nothing.