The impulse to confession almost always requires the presence of a fresh ear and a fresh heart; and in our moments of spiritual need, the man to whom we have no tie but our common nature, seems nearer to us than mother, brother, or friend. Our daily familiar life is but a hiding of ourselves from each other behind a screen of trivial words and deeds, and those who sit with us at the same hearth, are often the farthest off from the deep human soul within us, full of unspoken evil and unacted good.

We could never have loved the earth so well if we had had no childhood in it.

In all private quarrels the duller nature is triumphant by reason of dullness.

Until every good man is brave, we must expect to find many good women timid--too timid even to believe in the correctness of their own best promptings, when these would place them in a minority.

Power of generalizing gives men so much the superiority in mistake over the dumb animals.

People glorify all sorts of bravery except the bravery they might show on behalf of their nearest neighbors.

... learning to love any one is like an increase of property, -- it increases care, and brings many new fears lest precious things should come to harm.