We judge others by their actions but we judge ourselves by our intensions.

When I was praised I lost my time, for instantly I turned around to look at the work I had thought slightly of, and that day I made nothing new.

Heroism works in contradiction to the voice of mankind and in contradiction, for a time, to the voice of the great and good. Heroism is an obedience to a secret impulse of an individual

Thought is the seed of action; but action is as much its second form as thought is its first. It rises in thought, to the end that it may be uttered and acted. Always in proportion to the depth of its sense does it knock importunately at the gates of the soul, to be spoken, to be done.

Our religion vulgarly stands on numbers of believers. Whenever the appeal is made--no matter how indirectly--to numbers, proclamation is then and there made, that religion is not. He that finds God a sweet, enveloping presence, who shall dare to come in?

The power of a man increases steadily by continuance in one direction. He becomes acquainted with the resistances and with his own tools; increases his skill and strength and learns the favorable moments and favorable accidents.

Christianity taught the capacity, the element, to love the All-perfect without a stingy bargain for personal happiness. It taught that to love Him was happiness;--to love Him in others' virtues.