The moment good taste knows itself, some of its goodness is lost.

It is a dreadful truth that the state of having to depend solely on God is what we all dread most.... It is good of Him to force us; but dear me, how hard to feel that it is good at the time.

I do not expect old heads on young shoulders.

And out of that hopeless attempt has come nearly all that we call human history—money, poverty, ambition, war, prostitution, classes, empires, slavery—the long terrible story of man trying to find something other than God which will make him happy.

Whatever he says, let his inner resolution be not to bear whatever comes to him, but to bear it 'for a reasonable period'--and let the reasonable period be shorter than the trial is likely to last. It need not be much shorter; in attacks on patience, chastity, and fortitude, the fun is to make the man yield just when (had he but known it) relief was almost in sight.

There must, whether the gods see it or not, be something great in the mortal soul. For suffering, it seems, is infinite, and our capacity without limit.

The choice of every lost soul can be expressed in the words "Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven." There is always something they insist on keeping, even at the price of misery.