What makes life dreary is the want of a motive.

My childhood was full of deep sorrows - colic, whooping-cough, dread of ghosts, hell, Satan, and a Deity in the sky who was angry when I ate too much plumcake.

Perhaps the most delightful friendships are those in which there is much agreement, much disputation, and yet more personal liking.

Net the large fish and you are sure to have the small fry.

I had some ambition. I meant everything to be different with me. I thought I had more strength and mastery. But the most terrible obstacles are such as nobody can see except oneself.

The right to rebellion is the right to seek a higher rule, and not to wander in mere lawlessness.

I have always been thinking of the different ways in which Christianity is taught, and whenever I find one way that makes it a wider blessing than any other, I cling to that as the truest--I mean that which takes in the most good of all kinds, and brings in the most people as sharers in it. It is surely better to pardon too much, than to condemn too much.