If we would induce others to act virtuously, it will prove more effectual to show them their capacities than to expose their weakness--to attract them by a fairer ideal than to terrify them by pictures of misery and shame.

In the history of man it has been very generally the case that when evils have grown insufferable they have touched the point of cure.

Ostentation is the signal flag of hypocrisy.

Our life is what we make it. An insignificant game or a noble trial; a dream or a reality; a play of the senses worn out in selfish use, and flying "swifter than a weaver's shuttle," or an ascension of the soul, by daily duties and unfaltering faith, to more spiritual relations and to loftier toils.

The soul, like the body, acquires vigor by the exercise of all its faculties. In the midst of the world, in overcoming difficulties, in conquering selfishness, indolence, and fear--in all the occasions of duty, it employs, and reveals by employing, energies that render it efficient and robust--that broaden its scope, adjust its powers, and mature it with a rich experience.

At the bottom of not a little of the bravery that appears in the world, there lurks a miserable cowardice. Men will face powder and steel because they have not the courage to face public opinion.

Profaneness is a brutal vice. He who indulges in it is no gentleman, I care not what his stamp may be in society; I care not what clothes he wears, or what culture he boasts.