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

God's finger can touch nothing but to mold it into loveliness.

Could you not give me some sign, or tell me something about you that never changes, or some other way to know you, or thing to know you by?" — "No, Curdie: that would be to keep you from knowing me. You must know me in quite another way from that. It would not be the least use to you or me either if I were to make you know me in that way. It would be but to know the sign of me — not to know me myself.

There is this difference between the growth of some human beings and that of others: in the one case it is a continuous dying, in the other a continuous resurrection.

Faith is obedience, not compliance.

A beast does not know that he is a beast, and the nearer a man gets to being a beast, the less he knows it.

The possession of wealth is, as it were, prepayment, and involves an obligation of honor to the doing of correspondent work.