And so all growth that is not towards God Is growing to decay.

My spirits rose as I went deeper; into the forest; but I could not regain my former elasticity of mind. I found cheerfulness to be like life itself - not to be created by any argument. Afterwards I learned, that the best way to manage some kinds of pain fill thoughts, is to dare them to do their worst; to let them lie and gnaw at your heart till they are tired; and you find you still have a residue of life they cannot kill. So, better and worse, I went on, till I came to a little clearing in the forest.

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.

A man is as free as he chooses to make himself, never an atom freer.

Half of the misery in the world comes from trying to look, instead of trying to be, what one is not.

I believe in fate, never in chance.

Thou art beautiful because God created thee, but thou art a slave to sin... wickedness has made you ugly.