Whenever education and refinement carry us away from the common people, they are growing towards selfishness, which is the monster evil of the world. That is true cultivation which gives us sympathy with every form of human life, and enables us to work most successfully for its advancement. Refinement that carries us away from our fellow people is not God's refinement.

The thankful heart will find, in every hour, some heavenly blessings.

A man without mirth is like wagon without springs, in which one is caused disagreeably to jolt by every pebble over which it turns.

In the morning, we carry the world like Atlas; at noon, we stoop and bend beneath it; and at night, it crushes us flat to the ground.

Walking humbly, you are more of a man than you were when you walked proudly.

If there's a job to be done, I always ask the busiest man in my parish to take it on and it gets done.

The thistle is a prince. Let any man that has an eye for beauty take a view of the whole plant, and where will he see a more expressive grace and symmetry; and where is there a more kingly flower?