Apprehension, uncertainty, waiting, expectation, fear of surprise, do a patient more harm than any exertion.

I never lose an opportunity of urging a practical beginning, however small, for it is wonderful how often in such matters the mustard-seed germinates and roots itself.

Live your life while you have it. Life is a splendid gift. There is nothing small in it. For the greatest things grow by God's Law out of the smallest. But to live your life you must discipline it. You must not fritter it away in "fair purpose, erring act, inconstant will" but make your thoughts, your acts, all work to the same end and that end, not self but God. That is what we call character.

People talk about imitating Christ, and imitate Him in the little trifling formal things, such as washing the feet, saying His prayer, and so on; but if anyone attempts the real imitation of Him, there are no bounds to the outcry with which the presumption of that person is condemned.

Nursing is an art: and if it is to be made an art, it requires an exclusive devotion as hard a preparation as any painter's or sculptor's work; for what is the having to do with dead canvas or dead marble, compared with having to do with the living body, the temple of God's spirit? It is one of the Fine Arts: I had almost said, the finest of Fine Arts.

Woman has nothing but her affections,--and this makes her at once more loving and less loved.

My family tried to educate me in the way they thought a young woman should be. But I wanted to learn about mathmatics. I must have gotten that from my father, he was a master of math and science, and I always liked that sort of thing, too. Of course my mother and father did not agree with me on becoming more educated in mathmatics, but I was persistent and eventualy they gave in and I was taught by a wonderful teacher.