The superfluous blossoms on a fruit tree are meant to symbolize the large way God loves to do pleasant things.

Hope is sweet-minded and sweet-eyed. It draws pictures; it weaves fancies; it fills the future with delight.

The dog is the god of frolic.

I would rather speak the truth to ten men than blandishments and lying to a million. Try it, ye who think there is nothing in it! Try what it is to speak with God behind you, to speak so as to be only the arrow in the bow which the Almighty draws.

There's not much practical Christianity in the man who lives on better terms with angels and seraphs than with his children, servants and neighbours.

Laughter is day, and sobriety is night; a smile is the twilight that hovers gently between both, more bewitching than either.

Prayer is often an argument of laziness: "Lord, my temper gives me a vast deal of inconvenience, and it would be a great task for me to correct it; and wilt thou be pleased to correct it for me, that I may get along easier?" If prayer was answered under such circumstances, independent of action of natural laws, it would be paying a premium on indolence.