It is as useless to fight against the interpretations of ignorance as to whip the fog.

If people will be censors, let them weigh their words. I mean that the words were unfair by that disproportionateness of the condemnation, which everybody with some conscience must feel to be one of the great difficulties in denouncing a particular person. Every unpleasant dog is only one of many, but we kick him because he comes in our way, and there is always some want of distributive justice in the kicking.

Keep true, never be ashamed of doing right.

The best happiness will be to escape the worst misery.

No one who has ever known what it is to lose faith in a fellow-man whom he has profoundly loved and reverenced, will lightly say that the shock can leave the faith in the Invisible Goodness unshaken. With the sinking of high human trust, the dignity of life sinks too; we cease to believe in our own better self, since that also is part of the common nature which is degraded in our thought; and all the finer impulses of the soul are dulled.

The tread Of coming footsteps cheats the midnight watcher Who holds her heart and waits to hear them pause, And hears them never pause, but pass and die.

The devil tempts us not--'tis we tempt him, Reckoning his skill with opportunity.