Do you think you love your children better than He who made them? Is not your love what it is because He put it into your heart first? Have you not often been cross with them? Sometimes unjust to them? Whence came the returning love that rose from unknown depths in your being, and swept away the anger and the injustice? You did not create that love. Probably you were not good enough to send for it by prayer. But it came. God sent it. He makes you love your children.

Where did you come from, baby dear? Out of the everywhere and into here.

What distressed me most - more even than my own folly - was the perplexing question, How can beauty and ugliness dwell so near?

Religion is life essential.

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.

I am an optimistic fatalist. This world and all its beginnings will pass on into something better.

Forgiveness unleashes joy. It brings peace. It washes the slate clean. It sets all the highest values of love in motion.