The false man is more false to himself than to any one else. He may despoil others, but himself is the chief loser. The world’s scorn he might sometimes forget, but the knowledge of his own perfidy is undying.
There is nothing derogatory in any employment which ministers to the well-being of the race. It is the spirit that is carried into an employment that elevates or degrades it.
Love – that divine fire which was made to light and warm the temple of home – sometimes burns at unholy altars.
If you can express yourself so as to be perfectly understood in ten words, never use a dozen.
An ignorant man is always able to say yes or no immediately to any proposition. To a wise man, comparatively few things can be propounded which do not require a response with qualifications, with discriminations, with proportion.
New constellations of truth are daily discovered in the firmament of knowledge, and new stars are daily shining forth in each constellation.
Spurn not at seeming error, but dig below its surface for the truth; And beware of seeming truths that grow on the roots of error.
Habit can overcome anything but instinct, and can greatly modify even that.
The devil tempts men through their ambition, their cupidity, or their appetite, until he comes to the profane swearer, whom he clutches without any reward.
Of all “rights” which command attention at the present time among us, woman’s rights seem to take precedence.
Great books are written for Christianity much oftener than great deeds are done for it. City libraries tell us of the reign of Jesus Christ but city streets tell us of the reign of Satan.
Superiority to circumstances is one of the most prominent characteristics of great men.
Man is improvable. Some people think he is only a machine, and that the only difference between a man and a mill is, that one is carried by blood and the other by water.
Manners are the root, laws only the trunk and branches. Manners are the archetypes of laws. Manners are laws in their infancy; laws are manners fully grown, – or, manners are children, which, when they grow up, become laws.
Enslave a man and you destroy his ambition, his enterprise, his capacity. In the constitution of human nature, the desire of bettering one’s condition is the mainspring of effort. The first touch of slavery snaps this spring.
Bodies are cleansed by water; the mind is purified by truth.
Be careful never to retire to rest in a room not properly ventilated.
If you wish to write well, study the life about you, – life in the public streets.
Praise begets emulation, – a goodly seed to sow among youthful students.
In what pagan nation was Moloch ever propitiated by such an unbroken and swift-moving procession of victims as are offered to this Moloch of Christendom, intemperance.