A love of reading is an acquired taste, not an instinctive preference. The habit of reading is formed in childhood; and a child's taste in reading is formed in the right direction or in the wrong one while he is under the influence of his parents; and they are directly responsible for the shaping and cultivating of that taste.
Henry Clay TrumbullAttention is our first duty whenever we want to know what is our second duty. There is no such cause of confusion and worry about what we ought to do, and how to do it, as our unwillingness to hear what God would tell us on that very point.
Henry Clay TrumbullAn over-readiness to criticise or to depreciate a minister of Christ is proof of a lack of devotion to Christ.
Henry Clay TrumbullIt takes practice to use one's eyes, even when God has opened them. And there are some believers who never get beyond confounding a doctrinal statement of a truth with a living exemplification of that truth.
Henry Clay TrumbullJust as sure as the days go by, Jesus will come to us, looking for fruit; and He will come in personal hunger, needing and longing for the fruit which we might have ready for Him.
Henry Clay TrumbullThere is a great deal too much in the world, of the "heavenly-mindedness" which expends itself in the contemplation of the joys of paradise, which performs no duty which it can shirk, and whose constant prayer is to be lifted in some overwhelming flood of Divine grace, and be carried, amidst the admiration of men and the jubilance of angels, to the very throne of God.
Henry Clay Trumbull