That love of self, which the world advocates, is a thousand times more dangerous than any poison.

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

A good historian is timeless; although he is a patriot, he will never flatter his country in any respect.

Peace does not dwell in outward things, but within the soul.

No more restless uncertainties, no more anxious desires, no more impatience at the place we are in; for it is God who has placed us there, and who holds us in his arms. Can we be unsafe where he has placed us?

The past but lives in written words: a thousand ages were blank if books had not evoked their ghosts, and kept the pale unbodied shades to warn us from fleshless lips.

To pray is to desire; but it is to desire what God would have us desire.