Those are not the tears of repentance!... Self-loathing is not sorrow. Yet it is good, for it marks a step in the way home, and in the father's arms the prodigal forgets the self he abominates.

It is to the man who is trying to live, to the man who is obedient to the word of the Master, that the word of the Master unfolds itself.

For this, deep waters whelm the fruitful lea, Wars ravage, famine wastes, plague withers, nor Shall cease till men have chosen the better part.

As to the pure all things are pure, so the common mind sees far more vulgarity in others than the mind developed in genuine refinement.

Faith is obedience, not compliance.

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.

When we understand the outside of things, we think we have them. Yet the Lord puts his things in subdefined, suggestive shapes, yielding no satisfactory meaning to the mere intellect, but unfolding themselves to the conscience and heart.