Many men are mere warehouses full of merchandise--the head, the heart, are stuffed with goods. . . . There are apartments in their souls which were once tenanted by taste, and love, and joy, and worship, but they are all deserted now, and the rooms are filled with earthy and material things.

It is not when the cable lies coiled up on the deck that you know how strong or how weak it is; it is when it is put to the test.

A love of flowers would beget early rising, industry, habits of close observation, and of reading. It would incline the mind to notice natural phenomena, and to reason upon them. It would occupy the mind with pure thoughts, and inspire a sweet and gentle enthusiasm; maintain simplicity of taste; and ... unfold in the heart an enlarged, unstraightened, ardent piety.

Poverty is very good in poems but very bad in the house; very good in maxims and sermons but very bad in practical life.

Faith is a recognition of those things which are above the senses.

Compassion will cure more sins than condemnation.

At the bottom of every leaf-stem is a cradle, and in it is an infant germ; the winds will rock it, the birds will sing to it all summer long, but the next season it will unfold and go alone.