Every man has a paradise around him till he sins, and the angel of an accusing conscience drives him from his Eden.

All the means of action -- the shapeless masses -- the materials -- lie everywhere about us. What we need is the celestial fire to change the flint into the transparent crystal, bright and clear. That fire is genius.

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

That tree is very old, but I never saw prettier blossoms on it than it now bears. That tree grows new wood each year. Like that apple tree, I try to grow a new little wood each year.

"Do not fear! Heaven is as near," He said, "by water as by land!"

The everyday cares and duties, which men call drudgery, are the weights and counterpoises of the clock of time, giving its pendulum a true vibration and its hands a regular motion; and when they cease to hang upon its wheels, the pendulum no longer swings, the hands no longer move the clock stands still.

Love makes its record in deeper colors as we grow out of childhood into manhood.