Let us take things as we find them: let us not attempt to distort them into what they are not... We cannot make facts. All our wishing cannot change them. We must use them.

Every breath of air and ray of light and heat, every beautiful prospect, is, as it were, the skirts of the (angel's) garments, the waving robes of those whose faces see God.

I wonder what day I shall die on - one passes year by year over one's death day, as one might pass over one's grave.

There are wounds of the spirit which never close and are intended in God's mercy to bring us nearer to Him, and to prevent us leaving Him by their very perpetuity. Such wounds then may almost be taken as a pledge, or at least as a ground for a humble trust, that God will give us the great gift of perseverance to the end. This is how I comfort myself in my own great bereavements.

The heart is commonly reached, not through the reason, but through the imagination, by means of direct impressions, by the testimony of facts and events, by history, by description. Persons influence us, voices melt us, looks subdue us, deeds inflame us. Many a man will live and die upon a dogma; no man will be a martyr for a conclusion.

It is almost a definition of a gentleman to say that he is one who never inflicts pain.

How can we understand forgiveness if we haven't recognized the depth of our sin?