Refinement is the lifting of one's self upwards from the merely sensual; the effort of the soul to etherealize the common wants and uses of life.

Victories that come cheap are cheap. Those only are worth having which come as the result of hard fighting.

Reason is a permanent blessing of God to the soul. Without it there can be no large religion.

Good men are not those who now and then do a good act, but men who join one good act to another.

The unthankful heart... discovers no mercies; but let the thankful heart sweep through the day and, as the magnet finds the iron, so it will find, in every hour, some heavenly blessings!

Involved sentences, crooked, circuitous, and parenthetical, no matter how musically they may be balanced, are prejudicial to a facile understanding of the truth.

The most efficacious secular book that ever was published in America is the newspaper.