In engineering, that only is great which achieves. It matters not what the intention is, he who in the day of battle is not victorious is not saved by his intention.

It is a view of God that compensates every thing else, and enables the soul to rest in His bosom. How, when the child in the night screams with terror, hearing sounds that it knows not of, is that child comforted and put to rest? Is it by a philosophical explanation that the sounds were made by the rats in the partition? Is it by imparting entomological knowledge? No; it is by the mother taking the child in her lap, and singing sweetly to it, and rocking it. And the child thinks nothing of the explanation, but only of the mother.

A man who cannot get angry is like a stream that cannot overflow, that is always turbid. Sometimes indignation is as good as a thunderstorm in summer, clearing and cooling the air.

There is no greater crime than to stand between a man and his development; to take any law or institution and put it around him like a collar, and fasten it there, so that as he grows and enlarges, he presses against it till he suffocates and dies.

Let every man come to God in his own way.

If there be any one whose power is in beauty, in purity, in goodness, it is a woman.

Whenever education and refinement carry us away from the common people, they are growing towards selfishness, which is the monster evil of the world. That is true cultivation which gives us sympathy with every form of human life, and enables us to work most successfully for its advancement. Refinement that carries us away from our fellow people is not God's refinement.