Two people may be at the same spot in manners and behaviour, and yet one may be getting better, and the other worse, which is the greatest of differences that could possibly exist between them.
I say again, if I cannot draw a horse, I will not write THIS IS A HORSE under what I foolishly meant for one.
For the greatest fool and rascal in creation there is yet a worse condition; and that is, not to know it, but to think himself a respectable man.
No one is likely to remember what is entirely uninteresting to him.
The ideal is the only absolute real; and it must become the real in the individual life as well, however impossible they may count it who never tried it.
If there be music in my reader, I would gladly wake it.
He who is faithful over a few things is a lord of cities. It does not matter whether you preach in Westminster Abbey or teach a ragged class, so you be faithful. The faithfulness is all.
Faith is obedience, not compliance.
It is a happy thing for us that this is really all we have to concern ourselves about – what to do next. No man can do the second thing. He can do the first.
There is no inborn longing that shall not be fulfilled. I think that is as certain as the forgiveness of sins.
The region of the senses is the unbelieving part of the human soul.
Light-leaved acacias, by the door, Stood up in balmy air, Clusters of blossomed moonlight bore, And breathed a perfume rare.
Timely service, like timely gifts, is doubled in value.
Never be discouraged because good things get on so slowly here; and never fail daily to do that good which lies next to your hand.
Not even nothingness preceded life. Nothingness owes its very idea to existence.
I came from God, and I’m going back to God, and I won’t have any gaps of death in the middle of my life.
You would not think any duty small, If you yourself were great.
We must do the thing we must Before the thing we may; We are unfit for any trust Till we can and do obey.
For that great Love speaks in the most wretched and dirty hearts; only the tone of its voice depends on the echoes of the place in which it sounds.
It is to the man who is trying to live, to the man who is obedient to the word of the Master, that the word of the Master unfolds itself.