Mirthfulness is in the mind, and you cannot get it out. It is the blessed spirit that God has set in the mind to dust it, to enliven its dark places, and to drive asceticism, like a foul fiend, out at the back door. It is just as good, in its place, as conscience or veneration. Praying can no more be made a substitute for smiling than smiling can for praying.

There is no such thing as white lies; a lie is as black as a coalpit, and twice as foul.

It will not do to be saints at meeting and sinners everywhere else.

Victories that come cheap are cheap. Those only are worth having which come as the result of hard fighting.

If you attempt to beat a man down and to get his goods for less than a fair price, you are attempting to commit burglary, as much as though you broke into his shop to take the things without paying for them.

Flowers are sent to do God's work in unrevealed paths, and to diffuse influence by channels that we hardly suspect.

We should live and labor in our time that what came to us as a seed may go to the next generation as blossom, and what came to us as blossom, may go to them as fruit. This is what we mean by progress.