A man does not mind being blamed for his faults, and being punished for them, and he patiently suffers much for the sake of them; but he becomes impatient if he is required to give them up.
Passion is enhanced and tempered by avowal. In nothing, perhaps, is the middle course more desirable than in confidence and reticence toward those we love.
To sit in judgment on the departed is never likely to be equitable. We all suffer from life; who, except God, can call us to account? Let not their faults and sufferings, but what they have accomplished and done, occupy the survivors.
It is failings that show human nature, and merits that distinguish the individual; faults and misfortunes we all have in common; virtues belong to each one separately.
It would not be worth while to see seventy years if all the wisdom of this world were foolishness with God. The true is Godlike; we do not see it itself; we must guess at it through its manifestations.
The real scholar learns how to evolve the unknown from the known, and draws near the master.
In the smithy the iron is softened by blowing up the fire, and taking the dross from the bar. As soon as it is purified, it is beaten and pressed, and becomes firm again by the addition of fresh water. The same thing happens to a man at the hands of his teacher.
What belongs to a man he cannot get rid of, even though he throws it away.
Of true religions there are only two: one of them recognizes and worships the Holy that, without form or shape, dwells in and around us; and the other recognizes and worships it in its fairest form. Everything that lies between these two is idolatry.
The Saints were all at once driven from heaven; and senses, thought and heart were turned from a divine mother with a tender child, to the grown man doing good and suffering evil, who was later transfigured into a being half-divine in its nature, and then recognized and honored as God himself. He stood against a background where the Creator had opened out the universe; a spiritual influence went out from him; his sufferings were adopted as an example, and his transfiguration was the pledge of ever-lastingness.