What discord we should bring into the universe if our prayers were all answered. Then we should govern the world and not God. And do you think we should govern it better? It gives me only pain when I hear the long, wearisome petitions of people asking for they know not what. . . . Thanks-giving with a full heart-and the rest silence and submission to the divine will!

It has done me good to be somewhat parched by the heat and drenched by the rain of life.

Ah! What would the world be to us If the children were no more? We should dread the desert behind us Worse than the dark before.

A sermon is no sermon in which I cannot hear the heartbeat.

Stay, stay at home, my heart and rest; Home-keeping hearts are happiest.

How wonderful is the human voice! It is indeed the organ of the soul. The intellect of man is enthroned visibly on his forehead and in his eye, and the heart of man is written on his countenance, but the soul, the soul reveals itself in the voice only.

The best thing one can do when it's raining is to let it rain.