Sacrifice is the first element of religion, and resolves itself in theological language into the love of God.
We are complex, and therefore, in our natural state, inconsistent, beings, and the opinion of this hour need not be the opinion of the next.
I have long been convinced that the Christian Eucharist is but a continuation of the Eleusinian mysteries. St Paul, in using the word teleiois, almost confirms this.
To tell men that they cannot help themselves is to fling them into recklessness and despair.
A single seed of fact will produce in a season or two a harvest of calumnies; but sensible men will pay no attention to them.
Carelessness is inexcusable, and merits the inevitable sequence.
The best that we can do for one another is to exchange our thoughts freely; and that, after all, is about all.
High original genius is always ridiculed on its first appearance; most of all by those who have won themselves the highest reputation in working on the established lines. Genius only commands recognition when it has created the taste which is to appreciate it.
The practical effect of a belief is the real test of its soundness. Where we find a heroic life appearing as the uniform fruit of a particular mode of opinion, it is childish to argue in the face of fact that the result ought to have been different.
What is called virtue in the common sense of the word has nothing to do with this or that man’s prosperity, or even happiness.
The superstition of science scoffs at the superstition of faith.
We must have the real thing before we can have a science of a thing.
The first duty of an historian is to be on guard against his own sympathies.
Our human laws are but the copies, more or less imperfect, of the eternal laws, so far as we can read them.
The better one is morally the less aware they are of their virtue.
History is a voice forever sounding across the centuries the laws of right and wrong. Opinions alter, manners change, creeds rise and fall, but the moral law is written on the tablets of eternity.
The secret of a person’s nature lies in their religion and what they really believes about the world and their place in it.
To deny the freedom of the will is to make morality impossible.
If you think you can temper yourself into manliness by sitting here over your books, it is the very silliest fancy that ever tempted a young man to his ruin. You cannot dream yourself into a character; you must hammer and forge yourself one.
I cannot think the disputes and jealousies of Heaven are tried and settled by the swords of earth.