But the instinct of hoarding, like all other instincts, tends to become hypertrophied and perverted; and with the institution of private property comes another institution-that of plunder and brigandage. In private life, no motive of action is at present so powerful and so persistent as acquisitiveness, which unlike most other desires, knows no satiety. The average man is rich enough when he has a little more than he has got, and not till then.

I think middle-age is the best time, if we can escape the fatty degeneration of the conscience which often sets in at about fifty.

Faith begins as an experiment, and ends as an experience.

When our first parents were driven out of Paradise, Adam is believed to have remarked to Eve, "My dear, we live in an age of transition."

Literature flourishes best when it is half a trade and half an art.

Faith always contains an element of risk, of venture; and we are impelled to make the venture by the affinity and attraction which we feel in ourselves.

The church is only a secular institution in which the half-educated speak to the half-converted.