Generally speaking, an author's style is a faithful copy of his mind. If you would write a lucid style, let there first be light in your own mind; and if you would write a grand style, you ought to have a grand character.

It is quite beyond me how anyone can believe God speaks to us in books and stories. If the world does not directly reveal to us our relationship to it, if our hearts fail to tell us what we owe ourselves and others, we shall assuredly not learn it from books, which are at best designed but to give names to our errors.

Man is not born to solve the problem of the universe, but to find out what he has to do; and to restrain himself within the limits of his comprehension.

Sin writes histories, goodness is silent.

That we understand something perfectly, that we accomplish something better than anyone else around us, that is what matters.

There is a courtesy of the heart; it is allied to love. From its springs the purest courtesy in the outward behavior.

When ideas fail, words come in very handy.