Books are not made for furniture, but there is nothing else that so beautifully furnishes a house.

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.

There is no slave out of heaven like a loving woman; and of all loving women, there is no such slave as a mother.

Some people are so dry that you might soak them in a joke for a month and it would not get through their skins.

Watch lest prosperity destroy generosity.

Every tomorrow has two handles. We can take hold of it with the handle of anxiety or the handle of faith. We should live for the future, and yet should find our life in the fidelities of the present; the last is only the method of the first.

Living is death; dying is life. We are not what we appear to be. On this side of the grave we are exiles, on that citizens; on this side orphans, on that children.