As the most generous vine, if it is not pruned, runs out into many superfluous stems, and grows at last weak and fruitless; so dote the best man, if he be not cut short of his desires and pruned with afflictions. If it be painful to bleed, it is worse to wither. Let me be pruned, that I may grow, rather than be cut up to burn.

There would not be so many open mouths if there were not so many open ears.

It is not the bee's touching on the flowers that gathers the honey, but her abiding for a time upon them, and drawing out the sweet.

It is not he that reads most, but he that meditates most on Divine truth, that will prove the choicest, wisest, strongest Christian.

Not only commission makes a sin. A man is guilty of all those sins he hateth not. If I cannot avoid all, yet I will hate all.

A good man is kinder to his enemy than bad men are to their friends.

Death did not first strike Adam, the first sinful man, nor Cain, the first hypocrite, but Abel, the innocent and righteous. The first soul that met with death, overcame death; the first soul that parted from earth went to heaven. Death argues not displeasure, because he whom God loved best dies first, and the murderer is punished with living.