Mirthfulness is in the mind and you cannot get it out. It is just as good in its place as conscience or veneration.

When flowers are full of heaven-descended dews, they always hang their heads; but men hold theirs the higher the more they receive, getting proud as they get full.

Reading is a dissuasion from immorality. Reading stands in the place of company.

While a man is stringing a harp, he tries the strings, not for music, but for construction. When it is finished it shall be played for melodies. God is fashioning the human heart for future joy. He only sounds a string here and there to see how far His work has progressed.

We are but a point, a single comma, and God is the literature of eternity.

Our moral faculties must be placed highest, else they can no more flourish than could a plant growing under the shade and drip of trees.

There are many trials in life which do not seem to come from unwisdom or folly; they are silver arrows shot from the bow of God, and fixed inextricably in the quivering heart - they are meant to be borne - they were not meant, like snow or water, to melt as soon as they strike; but the moment an ill can be patiently borne it is disarmed of its poison, though not of its pain.