The essential tendency of life is toward happiness . . . . Optimism is the only true condition for a reasonable man.

If man is man and God is God, to live without prayer is not merely an awful thing: it is an infinitely foolish thing.

Let us beware of losing our enthusiasms. Let us ever glory in something, and strive to retain our admiration for all that would ennoble, and our interest in all that would enrich and beautify our life.

There is a necessary limit to our achievement, but none to our attempt.

No man dares to condemn the Christian faith today, because the Christian faith has not been tried. Not until men get rid of the thought that it is a poor machine, an expedient for saving them from suffering and pain; not until they get the grand idea of it as the great power of God present in and through the lives of men; not until then does Christianity enter upon its true trial and become ready to show what it can do.

Society does not exist for itself, but for the individual; and man goes into it, not to lose, but to find himself.

Christmas day is a day of joy and charity. May God make you very rich in both.