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

When I contrast the loving Jesus, comprehending all things in his ample and tender charity, with those who profess to bear his name, marking their zeal by what they do not love, it seems to me as though men, like the witches of old, had read the Bible backward, and had taken incantations out of it for evil, rather than inspiration for good.

Life is a crucible. We are thrown into it and tried.

There is but a slight difference between the man who may be said to know nothing and him who thinks he knows everything.

There is no tariff so injurious as that with which sectarian bigotry guards its commodities. It dwarfs the soul by shutting out truths from other continents of thought, and checks the circulation of its own.

In some way the secret vice exhales its poison; and the evil passion, however cunningly masked, stains through to the surface.

Tribulation will not hurt you, unless as it too often does; it hardens you and makes you sour, narrow and skeptical