Sarcasm I now see to be, in general, the language of the devil; for which reason I have long since as good as renounced it.
Imperfection clings to a person, and if they wait till they are brushed off entirely, they would spin for ever on their axis, advancing nowhere.
Isolation is the sum total of wretchedness to a man.
The Christian must be consumed by the conviction of the infinite beauty of holiness and the infinite damnability of sin.
Literature is the thought of thinking souls.
Have a purpose in life, and having it, throw into your work such strength of mind and muscle as God has given you.
Every man is my superior in that I may learn from him.
Let me have my own way in exactly everything and a sunnier and pleasanter creature does not exist.
Fame is no sure test of merit.
Look to be treated by others as you have treated others.
The battle that never ends is the battle of belief against disbelief.
One life; a little gleam of Time between two Eternities; no second chance to us for evermore!
The past is all holy to us; the dead are all holy; even they that were wicked when alive.
If time is precious, no book that will not improve by repeated readings deserves to be read at all.
In books lies the soul of the whole Past Time; the articulate audible voice of the Past, when the body and material substance of it has altogether vanished like a dream.
All work, even cotton-spinning, is noble; work is alone noble.
There needs not a great soul to make a hero; there needs a god-created soul which will be true to its origin; that will be a great soul!
War is a quarrel between two thieves too cowardly to fight their own battle; therefore they take boys from one village and another village, stick them into uniforms, equip them with guns, and let them loose like wild beasts against one other.
May blessings be upon the head of Cadmus, the Phoenicians, or whoever it was that invented books.
The tragedy of life is not so much what men suffer, but rather what they miss.