Better a wrong will than a wavering; better a steadfast enemy than an uncertain friend; better a false belief than no belief at all.

The best part of a woman's love is worship; but it is hard to her to be sent away with her precious spikenard rejected, and her long tresses, too, that were let fall, ready to soothe the wearied feet.

For what is love itself, for the one we love best? An enfolding of immeasurable cares which yet are better than any joys outside our love.

There is hardly any mental misery worse than that of having our own serious phrases, our own rooted beliefs, caricatured by a charlatan or a hireling.

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.

In travelling I shape myself betimes to idleness And take fools' pleasure

Conscientious people are apt to see their duty in that which is the most painful course.