God asks no man whether he will accept life. That is not the choice. You must take it. The only choice is how.

Pain is God's midwife, that helps some virtue into existence.

Children are the hands by which we take hold of heaven. By these tendrils we clasp it and climb thitherward. And why do we think that we are separated from them? We never half knew them, nor in this world could.

I never know how to worship until I know how to love; and to love I must have something that I can put my arms around, — something that, touching my heart, shall leave not the chill of ice, but the warmth of summer.

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.

Where is human nature so weak as in the bookstore?

The prouder a man is, the more he thinks he deserves, and the more he thinks he deserves, the less he really does deserve.