There is no general doctrine which is not capable of eating out our morality if unchecked by the deep-seated habit of direct fellow-feeling with individual fellow-men.

and we must learn to accommodate ourselves to the discovery that some of those cunningly-fashioned instruments called human souls have only a very limited range of music, and will not vibrate in the least under a touch that fills others with tremulous rapture or quivering agony.

Every year strips us of at least one vain expectation, and teaches us to reckon some solid good in its stead.

The responsibility of tolerance lies with those who have the wider vision.

Saints and martyrs had never interested Maggie so much as sages and poets.

Does any one suppose that private prayer is necessarily candid--necessarily goes to the roots of action! Private prayer is inaudible speech, and speech is representative: who can represent himself just as he is, even in his own reflections?

I am not magnanimous enough to like people who speak to me without seeming to see me