Good homes are still the best source of good humans.

So much depends, therefore, upon our maintaining gospel perspective in the midst of ordinariness, the pressures of temptation, tribulation, deprivation, and the cares of the world.

The flame of family can warm us and at the same time be a perpetual pilot light to rekindle us.

Ultimate hope and daily grumpiness are not reconcilable.

Personal, spiritual symmetry emerges only from the shaping of prolonged obedience. Twigs are bent, not snapped into shape.

Just as meekness is in all our virtues, so is pride in all our sins. Whatever its momentary and alluring guise, pride is the enemy, "the first of the sins." One reason to be particularly on guard against pride is that "the devilish strategy of Pride is that it attacks us, not in our weakest points, but in our strongest. It is preeminently the sin of the noble mind." Not only of the noble mind, but also of the semi-righteous.

The harrowing of the soul can be like the harrowing of the soil; to increase the yield, things are turned upside down.