When a man has no longer any conception of excellence above his own, his voyage is done, he is dead,--dead in trespasses and sin of blear-eyed vanity.

There is no true and abiding morality that is not founded in religion.

Every fresh act of benevolence is the herald of deeper satisfaction; every charitable act a stepping-stone towards heaven.

Doctrine is nothing but the skin of truth set up and stuffed.

Men think God is destroying them because he is tuning them. The violinist screws up the key till the tense cord sounds the concert pitch; but it is not to break it, but to use it tunefully, that he stretches the string upon the musical rack.

Refinement that carries us away from our fellow-men is not God's refinement.

That energy which makes a child hard to manage is the energy which afterwards makes him a manager of life.