In praising or loving a child, we love and praise not that which is, but that which we hope for.

What one doesn't understand one doesn't possess.

There speaks the man of truly noble ways, Who will not listen to the words of praise. In modesty averse, and with deaf ears, He acts as though the others were his peers.

When you take a man as he is, you make him worse. When you take a man as he can be, you make him better.

As to the value of conversions, God alone can judge. God alone can know how wide are the steps which the soul has to take before it can approach to a community with Him, to the dwelling of the perfect, or to the intercourse and friendship of higher natures.

Thought expands, but paralyzes; action animates, but narrows.

Character, in great and little things, means carrying through what you feel able to do.