Many men build as cathedrals are built-the part nearest the ground finished, but that part which soars toward heaven, the turrets and the spires, forever incomplete.

The truest self-respect is not to think of self.

A republican government in a hundred points is weaker than an autocratic government; but in this one point it is the strongest that ever existed — it has educated a race of men that are men.

Flowers are the sweetest things God ever made and forgot to put a soul into.

The call to religion is not a call to be better than your fellows, but to be better than yourself. Religion is relative to the individual.

But when we borrow trouble, and look forward into the future to see what storms are coming, and distress ourselves before they come as to how we shall avert them if they ever do come, we lose our proper trustfulness in God. When we torment ourselves with imaginary dangers, or trials, or reverses, we have already parted with that perfect love which casteth out fear.

You cannot sift out the poor from the community. The poor are indispensable to the rich.