The aim of argument, or of discussion, should not be victory, but progress.

We always believe God is like ourselves, the indulgent think him indulgent and the stern, terrible.

Strength is natural, but grace is the growth of habit. This charming quality requires practice if it is to become lasting.

Be saving, but not at the cost of all liberality. Have the soul of a king and the hand of a wise economist.

Words, like glasses, obscure everything they do not make clear. Before using a fine word, make a place for it.

I do not call reason that brutal reason which crushes with its weight what is holy and sacred, that malignant reason which delights in the errors it succeeds in discovering, that unfeeling and scornful reason which insults credulity.

I would fain coin wisdom,—mould it, I mean, into maxims, proverbs, sentences, that can easily be retained and transmitted. Would that I could denounce and banish from the language of men—as base money—the words by which they cheat and are cheated!