My highway is unfeatured air, My consorts are the sleepless stars, And men my giant arms upbear My arms unstained and free from scars.
A clear thought, a pure affection, a resolute act of a virtuous will, have a dignity of quite another kind, and far higher than accumulations of brick and granite and plaster and stucco, however cunningly put together.
There is but a very minute portion of the creation which we can turn into food and clothes, or gratification for the body; but the whole creation may be used to minister to the sense of beauty.
Religion is faith in an infinite Creator, who delights in and enjoins that rectitude which conscience commands us to seek. This conviction gives a Divine sanction to duty.
The miracles of Christ were studiously performed in the most unostentatious way. He seemed anxious to veil His majesty under the love with which they were wrought.
Real greatness has nothing to do with a man’s sphere. It does not lie in the magnitude of his outward agency, in the extent of the effects which he produces. The greatest men may do comparatively little.
Of all the discoveries which men need to make, the most important, at the present moment, is that of the self-forming power treasured up in themselves. They little suspect its extent, as little as the savage apprehends the energy which the mind is created to exert on the material world.
War is to be ranked among the most dreadful calamities which fall on a guilty world; and, what deserves consideration, it tends to multiply and perpetuate itself without end. It feeds and grows on the blood which it sheds. The passions, from which it springs, gain strength and fury from indulgence.
We honor revelation too highly to make it the antagonist of reason, or to believe that it calls us to renounce our highest powers.
Labor is discovered to be the grand conqueror, enriching and building up nations more surely than the proudest battles.
O God, animate us to cheerfulness! May we have a joyful sense of our blessings, learn to look on the bright circumstances of our lot, and maintain a perpetual contentedness.
Let every man, if possible, gather some good books under his roof.
God deliver us all from prejudice and unkindness, and fill us with the love of truth and virtue.
What a sublime doctrine it is, that goodness cherished now is eternal life already entered on!
Another powerful principle of our nature, which is the spring of war, is the passion for superiority, for triumph, for power. The human mind is aspiring, impatient of inferiority, and eager for preeminence and control.
Other blessings may be taken away, but if we have acquired a good friend by goodness, we have a blessing which improves in value when others fail.
Be true to your own highest convictions.
In the long run, truth is aided by nothing so much as by opposition.
Men are never very wise and select in the exercise of a new power.
A man may quarrel with himself alone; that is, by controverting his better instincts and knowledge when brought face to face with temptation.