Truth is the root, but human sympathy is the flower of practical life.

Goodness consists not in the outward things we do, but in the inward thing we are.

The brightest crowns that are worn in heaven have been tried, and smelted, and polished and glorified through the furnaces of tribulation.

Seeking Heaven through righteousness is not seeking righteousness, but something else;--it is not loving goodness for goodness' sake, but for its rewards.

Revolution does not insure progress. You may overturn thrones, but what proof that anything better will grow upon the soil?

How much in this world is charged to chance or fortune, or veiled under a more devout name, and accorded to Providence; while, when we come to look honestly into affairs, we find it to be a debt of our own accumulation, and one which we must inevitably pay.

Tomorrow may never come to us. We do not live in tomorrow. We cannot find it in any of our title-deeds. The man who owns whole blocks of real estate, and great ships on the sea, does not own a single minute of tomorrow. Tomorrow! It is a mysterious possibility, not yet born. It lies under the seal of midnight-behind the veil of glittering constellations.