Death, is not an end, but a transition crisis. All the forms of decay are but masks of regeneration--the secret alembics of vitality.

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.

Not in achievement, but in endurance, of the human soul, does it show its divine grandeur and its alliance with the infinite.

I should not like to preach to a congregation who all believed as I believe. I would as lief preach to a basket of eggs in their smooth compactness and oval formality.

Poetry is the utterance of deep and heart-felt truth - the true poet is very near the oracle.

It is as bad to clip conscience as to clip coin; it is as bad to give a counterfeit statement as a counterfeit bill.

It is exceedingly deleterious to withdraw the sanction of religion from amusement. If we feel that it is all injurious we should strip the earth of its flowers and blot out its pleasant sunshine.