Love is ownership. We own whom we love. The universe is God's because He loves.

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.

Nature holds an immense uncollected debt over every man's head.

A man without ambition is like a beautiful worm - it can creep, but it cannot fly.

Our children that die young are like those spring bulbs which have their flowers prepared beforehand, and leave nothing to do but to break ground, and blossom, and pass away. Thank God for spring flowers among men, as well as among the grasses of the field.

A man's character is the reality of himself; his reputation, the opinion others have formed about him; character resides in him, reputation in other people; that is the substance, this is the shadow.

There are many trials in life which do not seem to come from unwisdom or folly; they are silver arrows shot from the bow of God, and fixed inextricably in the quivering heart - they are meant to be borne - they were not meant, like snow or water, to melt as soon as they strike; but the moment an ill can be patiently borne it is disarmed of its poison, though not of its pain.