An explanation of cause is not a justification by reason.

Friendship (as the ancients saw) can be a school of virtue, but also (as they did not see) a school of vice. It is ambivalent. It makes good men better and bad men worse.

The human heart is not unchanging (nay, changes almost out of recognition in the twinkling of an eye).

If we accept Heaven we shall not be able to retain even the smallest and most intimate souvenirs of Hell.

The only things we can keep are the things we freely give to God. What we try to keep for ourselves is just what we are sure to lose.

I am suffering incessant temptations to uncharitable thoughts at present; one of those black moods in which nearly all one's friends seem to be selfish or even false. And how terrible that there should be even a kind of pleasure in thinking evil.

A man can't be taken to hell, or sent to hell: you can only get there on your own steam.