Cruelty hardens and degrades, kindness reforms and ennobles.

Honesty is the mother of confidence; it unites, combines and solidifies society. Dishonesty is disintegration; it destroys confidence; it brings social chaos. . . .

He raised his hands, not to strike, but in benediction. Lincoln was the grandest figure of the fiercest civil war. He is the gentlest memory of our world.

I love to think of the whole universe together as one eternal fact. I love to think that everything is alive; that crystallization is itself a step toward joy. I love to think that when a bud bursts into blossom: it feels a thrill. I love to have the universe full of feeling and full of joy, and not full of simple dead, inert matter, managed by an old bachelor for all eternity.

An honest God is the noblest work of man.

Not one of the orthodox ministers dare preach what he thinks if he knows a majority of his congregation think otherwise. He knows that every member of his church stands guard over his brain with a creed, like a club, in his hand. He knows that he is not expected to search after the truth, but that he is employed to defend the creed. Every pulpit is a pillory, in which stands a hired culprit, defending the justice of his own imprisonment.

If the reason I give is a good one, you will act upon it. If it is a bad one I cannot make it better by piling epithet upon epithet. There is no logic in abuse; there is no argument in an epithet.