“God will excuse our prayers for ourselves whenever we are prevented from them by being occupied in such good works as to entitle us to the prayers of others.”

It is better to meet danger than to wait for it. He that is on a lee shore, and foresees a hurricane, stands out to sea and encounters a storm to avoid a shipwreck.

Doubt is the vestibule of faith.

The awkwardness and embarrassment which all feel on beginning to write, when they themselves are the theme, ought to serve as a hint to author’s that self is a subject they ought very rarely to descant upon.

Insults are engendered from vulgar minds, like toadstools from a dunghill.

That writer does the most who gives his reader the most knowledge and takes from him the least time.

Theories are private property, but truth is common stock.

Sturdy beggars can bear stout denials.

None are so fond of secrets as those who do not mean to keep them.

Let those who would affect singularity with success first determine to be very virtuous, and they will be sure to be very singular.

That is fine benevolence, finely executed, which, like the Nile, comes from hidden sources.

That is true beauty which has not only a substance, but a spirit; a beauty that we must intimately know, justly to appreciate.

Liberty will not descend to a people; a people must raise themselves to liberty; it is a blessing that must be earned before it can be enjoyed.

Some persons will tell you, with an air of the miraculous, that they recovered although they were given over; whereas they might with more reason have said, they recovered because they were given over.

There are three kinds of praise, that which we yield, that which we lend, and that which we pay. We yield it to the powerful from fear, we lend it to the weak from interest, and we pay it to the deserving from gratitude.

The good opinion of our fellow men is the strongest, though not the purest motive to virtue.

Law and equity are two things which God has joined, but which man has put asunder.

Men do not rest content with parrying the attacks of a superior, but often strike the first blow to prevent the attack being made.

Laughter is the corrective force which prevents us from becoming cranks.

I have tried to lift France out of the mud. But she will return to her errors and vomitings. I cannot prevent the French from being French.

Opposition, n. In politics the party that prevents the government from running amuck by hamstringing it.

This view that women are somehow inferior to men is not restricted to one religion or belief. It is widespread. Women are prevented from playing a full and equal role in many faiths.

Forgiveness is the ultimate preventive medicine, as well as the greatest healer.

I believe that preventing radicalisation is far more efficient than de-radicalisation, meaning stopping someone joining is a lot easier than trying to pull someone out once they’ve joined.

I know deep hurt. But I also know deep hope. Sometimes God’s power is shown as much in preventing things as it is in making them happen. We may never know why. But we can always know and trust the Who.