Wisdom prepares for the worst, but folly leaves the worst for the day when it comes.

Duties are ours; events are God's. This removes an infinite burden from the shoulders of a miserable, tempted, dying creature. On this consideration only, can he securely lay down his head, and close his eyes.

Every year of my life I grow more convinced that it is wisest and best to fix our attention on the beautiful and the good, and dwell as little as possible on the evil and the false.

When a founder has cast a bell he does not presently fix it in the steeple, but tries it with his hammer, and beats it on every side to see if there be any flaw in it. So Christ doth not presently after he hath converted a man, convey him to heaven; but suffers him first to be beaten upon by many temptations and then exalts him to his crown.

Every man is an original and solitary character. None can either understand or feel the book of his own life like himself.

I could write down twenty cases wherein I wished that God had done otherwise than he did, but which I now see, if I had had my own way, would have led to extensive mischief.

Our Heavenly Father always sends His children the things they ask, or better things.