It is not the number of books you read; nor the variety of sermons which you hear; nor the amount of religious conversation in which you mix: but it is the frequency and the earnestness with which you meditate on these things, till the truth which may be in them becomes your own, and part of your own being, that ensures your spiritual growth.

Let a man begin in earnest with "I ought," and he will end, by God's grace, if he persevere, with "I will." Let him force himself to abound in all small offices of kindliness, attention, affectionateness, and all these for God's sake. By and by he will feel them become the habit of his soul.

It is not the situation which makes the man, but the man who makes the situation.

Never does a man know the force that is in him till some mighty affliction or grief has humanized the soul.

Time and pains will do anything.

... religious controversy does only harm. It destroys humble inquiry after truth, and throws all the energies into an attempt to prove ourselves right-a spirit in which no man gets at truth.

He who, with strong passions, remains chaste--he who, keenly sensitive, with manly power of indignation in him, can yet restrain himself and forgive--these are strong men, spiritual heroes.