A thoughtful mind, when it sees a nation's flag, sees not the flag, but the nation itself.

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

No man knows what he will do till the right temptation comes.

Life would be a perpetual flea hunt if a man were obliged to run down all the innuendoes, inveracities, and insinuations and misrepresentations which are uttered against him.

A grindstone that had not grit in it, how long would it take to sharpen an ax? And affairs that had not grit in them, how long would they take to make a man?

A man ought to carry himself in the world as an orange tree would if it could walk up and down in the garden, swinging perfume from every little censer it holds up in the air.

There are some men's souls that are so thin, so almost destitute of what is the true idea of soul, that were not the guardian angels so keen-sighted, they would altogether overlook them.