How many people would like to be good, if only they might be good without taking trouble about it! They do not like goodness well enough to hunger and thirst after it, or to sell all that they have that they may buy it; they will not batter at the gate of the kingdom of heaven; but they look with pleasure on this or that aerial castle of righteousness, and think it would be rather nice to live in it.

Free will is not the liberty to do whatever one likes, but the power of doing whatever one sees ought to be done, even in the very face of otherwise overwhelming impulse. There lies freedom, indeed.

I believe in fate, never in chance.

It is the heart that is not sure of its God that is afraid to laugh in His presence.

We should teach our children to think no more of their bodies when dead than they do of their hair when cut off, or of their old clothes when they have done with them.

There is but one thing that can free a man from superstition, and that is belief. All history proves it. The most sceptical have ever been the most credulous.

There are things that must be done in faith, else they never have being.