The ability to convert ideas to things is the secret of outward success.

There is an ugly kind of forgiveness in this world,--a kind of hedgehog forgiveness, shot out like quills. Men take one who has offended, and set him down before the blowpipe of their indignation, and scorch him, and burn his fault into him; and when they have kneaded him sufficiently with their fiery fists, then--they forgive him.

John Wesley quaintly observed that the road to heaven is a narrow path, not intended for wheels, and that to ride in a coach here and to go to heaven hereafter, was a happiness too much for man.

There is no such thing as white lies; a lie is as black as a coalpit, and twice as foul.

There ought to be such an atmosphere in every Christian church that a man going there and sitting two hours should take the contagion of heaven, and carry home a fire to kindle the altar whence he came.

A cunning man overreaches no one half as much as himself.

A little library, growing every year, is an honorable part of a man’s history. It is a man’s duty to have books.