It is a noble and great thing to cover the blemishes and excuse the failings of a friend; to draw a curtain before his weaknesses and to display his perfections; to bury his shortcomings in silence but to proclaim his virtues on the housetop.

The mind begins to boggle at unnatural substances as things paradoxical and incomprehensible.

Let a man be but in earnest in praying against a temptation as the tempter is in pressing it, and he needs not proceed by a surer measure.

Flints may be melted - we see it daily - but an ungrateful heart cannot be; not by the strongest and noblest flame.

An obstacle is often an unrecognized opportunity

Much reading is like much eating -wholly useless without digestion.

It is the work of fancy to enlarge, but of judgment to shorten and contract; and therefore this must be as far above the other as judgment is a greater and nobler faculty than fancy or imagination.