All wars are civil ones; for it is still man spilling his own blood, tearing out his own bowels.

The gifts of God are not to be rejected on account of the channel that brings them.

I had often heard Mentor say, that the voluptuous were never brave, and I now found by experience that it was true; for the Cyprians whose jollity had been so extravagant and tumultuous, now sunk under a sense of their danger and wept like women. I heard nothing but the screams of terror and the wailings of hopeless distress. Some lamented the loss of pleasures that were never to return; but none had presence of mind either to undertake or direct the navigation of the menaced vessel.

How desirable is this simplicity! Who will give it to me? I will quit all else; it is the pearl of great price.

I believe that we are conforming to the divine order and the will of Providence when we are doing even indifferent things that belong to our condition.

Prayer is so necessary, and the source of so many blessings, that he who has discovered the treasure cannot be prevented from having recourse to it, whenever he has an opportunity.

This poor world, the object of so much insane attachment, we are about to leave; it is but misery, vanity, and folly; a phantom--the very fashion of which "passeth away.