I could well believe that it is God's intention, since we have refused milder remedies, to compel [Christians] into unity, by persecution even. Satan is without doubt nothing else than a hammer in the hand of a benevolent and severe God.

Where, except in the present, can the eternal be met?

Oh, I'm a dangerous criminal, I am,' said the dwarf cheerfully.

We need not despair even in our worst, for our failures are forgiven. The only fatal thing is to sit down content with anything less than perfection.

We feasted on love; every mode of it, solemn and merry, romantic and realistic, sometimes as dramatic as a thunderstorm, sometimes comfortable and unemphatic as putting on your soft slippers. She was my pupil and my teacher, my subject and my sovereign, my trusty comrade, friends, shipmate, fellow-soldier. My mistress, but at the same time all that any man friend has ever been to me.

when pain is to be born, a little courage helps more than much knowledge, a little human sympathy more than much courage, and the least tincture of the love of God more than all.

There is a story about a schoolboy who was asked what he thought God was like. He replied that, as far as he could make out, God was 'the sort of person who is always snooping around to see if anyone is enjoying himself and then trying to stop it.'