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.

If a man can have only one kind of sense, let him have common sense. If he has that and uncommon sense too, he is not far from genius.

While a man is stringing a harp, he tries the strings, not for music, but for construction. When it is finished it shall be played for melodies. God is fashioning the human heart for future joy. He only sounds a string here and there to see how far His work has progressed.

Give us that calm certainty of truth, that nearness to Thee, that conviction of the reality of the life to come, which we shall need to bear us through the troubles of this.

Where is human nature so weak as in the bookstore?

There is a power in the human mind ... to see things as they are ... but there is equally a power to see things as they might be.

God made man to go by motives, and he will not go without them, any more than a boat without steam or a balloon without gas.