In this world, full often, our joys are only the tender shadows which our sorrows cast.

Poverty is very good in poems but very bad in the house; very good in maxims and sermons but very bad in practical life.

What if you have seen it before, ten thousand times over? An apple tree in full blossom is like a message, sent fresh from heaven to earth, of purity and beauty.

Many men are mere warehouses full of merchandise--the head, the heart, are stuffed with goods. . . . There are apartments in their souls which were once tenanted by taste, and love, and joy, and worship, but they are all deserted now, and the rooms are filled with earthy and material things.

Half the spiritual difficulties that men and women suffer arise from a morbid state of health.

Temptations are enemies outside the castle seeking entrance. If there be no false retainer within who holds treacherous parley, there can scarcely be even an offer.

Some men are like pyramids, which are very broad where they touch the ground, but grow narrow as they reach the sky.