The excellence and inspiration of truth is in the pursuit, not in the mere having of it. The pursuit of all truth is a kind of gymnastics; a man swings from one truth with higher strength to gain another. The continual glory is the possibility opening before us.

A patient, humble temper gathers blessings that are marred by the peevish and overlooked by the aspiring.

Impatience dries the blood sooner than age or sorrow.

Many a man who might walk over burning ploughshares into heaven stumbles from the path because there is gravel in his shoes.

There is no happiness in life, there is no misery like that growing out of the dispositions which consecrate or desecrate a home.

The greatest successes grow out of great failures. In numerous instances the result is better that comes after a series of abortive experiences than it would have been if it had come at once; for all these successive failures induce a skill which is so much additional power working into the final achievement.... The hand that evokes such perfect music from the instrument has often failed in its touch, and bungled among the keys.... Every disappointed effort fences in and indicates the only possible path of success, and makes it easier to find.

The unmerciful man is most certainly an unblessed man. His sympathies are all dried up; he is afflicted with a chronic jaundice, and lives timidly and darkly in a little, narrow rat-hole of distrust.