“Good and bad men are each less so than they seem.”

To believe and to understand are not diverse things, but the same things in different periods of growth.

Christianity is not a theory or speculation, but a life; not a philosophy of life, but a life and a living process.

Until you understand a writer’s ignorance, presume yourself ignorant of his understanding.

A great mind must be androgynous.

The doing evil to avoid an evil cannot be good.

Silence does not always mark wisdom.

Democracy is the healthful lifeblood which circulates through the veins and arteries, which supports the system, but which ought never to appear externally, and as the mere blood itself.

There is in every human countenance either a history or a prophecy which must sadden, or at least soften every reflecting observer.

Poetry: the best words in the best order.

I never knew a trader in philanthropy who was not wrong in his head or heart somewhere or other.

A bitter and perplexed “What shall I do?” Is worse to man than worse necessity.

No mind is thoroughly well organized that is deficient in a sense of humor.

Real pain can alone cure us of imaginary ills.

How did the atheist get his idea of that God whom he denies?

That willing suspension of disbelief for the moment, which constitutes poetic faith.

We shall only differ in degree and not in kind,–just as the elephant differs from the slug. But by the concession of the materialists of all the schools, or almost all.

The free man is not he who defies the rules … but he who, recognizing the compulsions inherent in his being, seeks rather to read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest each day’s experience.

And culture is – each of us – is like one pearl added to another to make a chain. We each contribute to the other. And that’s all right. But once you’re on your own, do that which comes from within. And I feel this very strongly.

Throws up a steamy column, and the cups That cheer but not inebriate, wait on each, So let us welcome peaceful evening in

A Clinical Study. Taking some time to read each night really taught me how to feign narcolepsy when my husband asked me what my “plan” was for taking down the Christmas tree.

It chills my blood to hear the blest Supreme Rudely appealed to on each trifling theme.

Use the worst colour you can find in each place – it usually is the best.

In the heavens we discover [stars] by their light, and by their light alone … the sole evidence of the existence of these distant worlds … that each of them is built up of molecules of the same kinds we find on earth.

To suggest otherwise would be the logical equivalent to asserting that the state has the authority to break up stable families and redistribute its infant population to provide each child with the ‘best family.’