There are no variations except for those who know a norm, and no subtleties for those who have not grasped the obvious.

We are afraid that Heaven is a bribe, and that if we make it our goal we shall no longer be disinterested. It is not so. Heaven offers nothing that the mercenary soul can desire. It is safe to tell the pure in heart that they shall see God, for only the pure in heart want to. There are rewards that do not sully motives. A man's love for a woman is not mercenary because he wants to marry her, nor his love for poetry mercenary because he wants to read it, nor his love of exercise less disinterested because he wants to run and leap and walk. Love, by definition, seeks to enjoy its object.

Our Heavenly Father has provided many delightful inns for us along our journey, but he takes great care to see that we do not mistake any of them for home.

Slowly, quietly, like snow-flakes—like the small flakes that come when it is going to snow all night —little flakes of me, my impressions, my selections, are settling down on the image of her. The real shape wil be quite hidden in the end.

Nothing is more characteristically juvenile than contempt for juvenility. . . youth's characteristic chronological snobbery.

I think that if God forgives us we must forgive ourselves. Otherwise, it is almost like setting up ourselves as a higher tribunal than Him.

A particular ikon an aid to devotion may be itself a word of art, but that is logically accidental; its artistic merits will not make it a better ... ikon. They may make it a worse one.