The ideal is the only absolute real; and it must become the real in the individual life as well, however impossible they may count it who never tried it.

Will is not unfrequently weakness.

To be trusted is a greater compliment than being loved.

Alas! this time is never the time for self-denial, it is always the next time. Abstinence is so much more pleasant to contemplate upon the other side of indulgence.

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

If instead of a gem, or even a flower, we should cast the gift of a loving thought into the heart of a friend, that would be giving as the angels give.

Doubts are the messengers of the Living One to the honest. They are the first knock at our door of things that are not yet, but have to be, understood. . . . Doubts must precede every deeper assurance; for uncertainties are what we first see when we look into a region hitherto unknown, unexplored, unannexed.