Prayer is not eloquence, but earnestness; not the definition of helplessness, but the feeling of it; not figures of speech, but earnestness of soul.

All reformations seem formidable before they are attempted.

A slowness to applaud betrays a cold temper or an envious spirit.

Long habit so reconciles us to almost any thing, that the grossest improprieties cease to strike us when they once make a part of the common course of action.

Where evil may be done, it is right to ponder; where only suffered, know the shortest pause is much too long.

It is a sober truth that people who live only to amuse themselves work harder at the task than most people do in earning their daily bread.

Sensibility appears to me to be neither good nor evil in itself, but in its application. Under the influence of Christian principle, it makes saints and martyrs; ill-directed, or uncontrolled, it is a snare, and the source of every temptation; besides, as people cannot get it if it is not given them, to descant on it seems to me as idle as to recommend people to have black eyes or fair complexions.