... the weakest among us has a gift, however seemingly trivial, which is peculiar to him, and which, worthily used, will be a gift also to his race forever.

The question is not what man can scorn, or disparage, or find fault with, but what he can love, and value, and appreciate.

Without mountains the air could not be purified, nor the flowing of the rivers sustained.

He who has once stood beside the grave, to look back upon the companionship which has been forever closed, feeling how impotent there are the wild love, or the keen sorrow, to give one instant's pleasure to the pulseless heart, or atone in the lowest measure to the departed spirit for the hour of unkindness, will scarcely for the future incur that debt to the heart which can only be discharged to the dust.

There is no such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good weather.

God shows us in Himself, strange as it may seem, not only authoritative perfection, but even the perfection of obedience--an obedience to His own laws; and in the cumbrous movement of those unwieldiest of his creatures we are reminded, even in His divine essence, of that attribute of uprightness in the human creature "that sweareth to his own hurt and changeth not.

You might sooner get lightning out of incense smoke than true action or passion out of your modern English religion.