If there be one attribute of the Deity which astonishes me more than another, it is the attribute of patience. The Great Soul that sits on the throne of the universe is not, never was, and never will be, in a hurry. In the realm of nature, every thing has been wrought out in the august consciousness of infinite leisure; and I bless God for that geology which gives me a key to the patience in which the creative process was effected.

I account the office of benefactor, or almoner, to which God appoints all those whom he has favored with wealth, one of the most honorable and delightful in the world. He never institutes a channel for the passage of His bounties that those bounties do not enrich and beautify.

Posts of honor are evermore posts of danger and of care.

The faculty of self-help is that which distinguished man from animals; that it is the Godlike element, or holds within itself the Godlike element, of his constitution.

Labor is the instituted means for the methodical development of all our powers under the direction and control of the will.

The hammer and the anvil are the two hemispheres of every true reformer's character.

Work for immortality if you will: then wait for it.