He is rich or poor according to what he is, not according to what he has.

The way to avoid evil is not by maiming our passions, but by compelling them to yield their vigor to our moral nature.

God makes the life fertile by disappointments, as he makes the ground fertile by frosts.

The little troubles and worries of life may be as stumbling blocks in our way, or we may make them stepping-stones to a nobler character and to Heaven. Troubles are often the tools by which God fashions us for better things.

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

If God but cares for our inward and eternal life, if by all the experiences of this life He is reducing it and preparing for its disclosure, nothing can befall us but prosperity. Every sorrow shall be but the setting of some luminous jewel of joy. Our very morning shall be but the enamel around the diamond; our very hardships but the metallic rim that holds the opal, glancing with strange interior fires.

The last person one wants to be is themselves. Sadly, that is the best person to be.