never was there a thoroughly noble nature without some romance in it.

It is not the smallest use to try to make people good, unless you try at the same time - and they feel that you are trying - to make them happy. And you rarely can make another happy, unless you are happy yourself.

Let every one of us cultivate, in every word that issues from our mouth, absolute truth. I say cultivate, because to very few people - as may be noticed of most young children - does truth, this rigid, literal veracity, come by nature. To many, even who love it and prize it dearly in others, it comes only after the self-control, watchfulness, and bitter experience of years.

Many true words are spoken in jest.

No virtue ever was founded on a lie. The truth, then, at all risks and costs - the truth from the beginning. Make a clean breast to whomsoever you need to make it, and then - face the world.

Do your neighbour good by all means in your power, moral as well as physical - by kindness, by patience, by unflinching resistance against every outward evil - by the silent preaching of your own contrary life. But if the only good you can do him is by talking at him, or about him - nay, even to him, if it be in a self-satisfied, super-virtuous style - such as I earnestly hope the present writer is not doing - you had much better leave him alone.

It may often be noticed, the less virtuous people are, the more they shrink away from the slightest whiff of the odour of un-sanctity. The good are ever the most charitable, the pure are the most brave.