“Children are unpredictable. You never know what inconsistency they are going to catch you in next.”

There is no friendship, no love, like that of the parent for the child.

A Christian is nothing but a sinful man who has put himself to school for Christ for the honest purpose of becoming better.

The mother’s heart is the child’s schoolroom.

Next to victory, there is nothing so sweet as defeat, if only the right adversary overcomes you.

Troubles are often the tools by which God fashions us for better things.

Your greatest pleasure is that which rebounds from hearts that you have made glad.

Find out what your temptations are, and you will find out largely what you are yourself.

You have come into a hard world. I know of only one easy place in it, and that is the grave.

The difference between perseverance and obstinacy is that one comes from a strong will, and the other from a strong won’t.

We let our blessings get mouldy, and then call them curses.

A man who cannot get angry is like a stream that cannot overflow, that is always turbid. Sometimes indignation is as good as a thunderstorm in summer, clearing and cooling the air.

Downright admonition, as a rule, is too blunt for the recipient.

The cynic is one who never sees a good quality in a man, and never fails to see a bad one. He is the human owl, vigilant in darkness and blind to light, mousing for vermin, and never seeing noble game.

Our best successes often come after our greatest disappointments.

The worst thing in this world, next to anarchy, is government.

A man’s character is the reality of himself; his reputation, the opinion others have formed about him; character resides in him, reputation in other people; that is the substance, this is the shadow.

It is only too easy to catch people’s attention by doing something worse than anyone else has dared to do it before.

Nature won’t be summoned to order and won’t be kept waiting. It must be caught, well caught.

The more you push to get close to me, the more I’ll withdraw. You’ll never catch me. Not if I don’t want to be caught.

If something catches your attention, it’s probably going to catch the attention of others, too.

It’s not worth moving heaven and earth, spending billions of dollars just trying to catch one person.

A closed mouth catches no flies.

Idleness is hells fishhook for catching souls.

There is something extraordinary about watching her inhabit the world. – and sometimes she catches me staring.