In our judgment of human transactions, the law of optics is reversed, we see most dimly the objects which are close around us.

The depreciation of Christianity by indifference is a more insidious and less curable evil than infidelity itself.

Geologists complain that when they want specimens of the common rocks of a country, they receive curious spars; just so, historians give us the extraordinary events and omit just what we want,--the every-day life of each particular time and country.

Of all hostile feelings, envy is perhaps the hardest to be subdued, because hardly any one owns it even to himself, but looks out for one pretext after another to justify his hostility.

He who is not aware of his ignorance will be only misled by his knowledge.

A man is called selfish not for pursuing his own good, but for neglecting his neighbor's.

Christianity, contrasted with the Jewish system of emblems, is truth in the sense of reality, as substance is opposed to shadows, and, contrasted with heathen mythology, is truth as opposed to falsehood.