Humility like darkness reveals the heavenly lights.

You cannot perceive beauty but with a serene mind.

Enemies publish themselves. They declare war. The friend never declares his love.

Think of admitting the details of a single case of the criminal court into our thoughts, to stalk profanely through their very sanctum sanctorum for an hour, ay, for many hours! to make a very barroom of the mind's inmost apartment, as if for so long the dust of the street had occupied us,--the very street itself, with all its travel, its bustle, and filth, had passed through our thoughts' shrine! Would it not be an intellectual and moral suicide?

Do not be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much life so. Aim above morality. Be not simply good; be good for something.

We communicate like the burrows of foxes, in silence and darkness, under ground. We are undermined by faith and love.

To what end do I lead a simple life at all, pray? That I may teach others to simplify their lives? - and so all our lives be simplified merely, like an algebraic formula? Or not, rather, that I may make use of the ground I have cleared to live more worthily and profitably?