“But oars alone can ne’er prevail To reach the distant coast; The breath of Heaven must swell the sail, Or all the toil is lost.”

Trials make the promise sweet, Trials give new life to prayer; Trials bring me to His feet, Lay me low, and keep me there.

And works his sovereign will. Ye fearful saints fresh courage take, The clouds ye so much dread Are big with mercy, and shall break In blessings on your head.

The bud may have a bitter taste, But sweet will be the flow’r. Blind unbelief is sure to err And scan His work in vain; God is His own interpreter, And He will make it plain.

Nor rural sights alone, but rural sounds, Exhilirate the spirit, and restore The tone of languid nature.

And the tear that is wiped with a little address, May be follow’d perhaps by a smile.

Oh to have a lodge in some vast wilderness. Where rumors of oppression and deceit, of unsuccessful and successful wars may never reach me anymore.

Deep in unfathomable mines Of never failing skill He treasures up his bright designs,

To impute our recovery to medicine, and to carry our view no further, is to rob God of His honor, and is saying in effect that He has parted with the keys of life and death, and, by giving to a drug the power to heal us, has placed our lives out of His own reach.

A self-made man? Yes, and one who worships his creator.

I will pray, therefore, for blessings on my friends, even though they cease to be so, and upon my enemies, though they continue such.

Elegant as simplicity, and warm As ecstasy.

The man to solitude accustom’d long, Perceives in everything that lives a tongue; Not animals alone, but shrubs and trees Have speech for him, and understood with ease,

There is in souls a sympathy with sounds.

No man can be a patriot on an empty stomach.

O Winter, ruler of the inverted year!

A fool must now and then be right, by chance

A straight oar looks bent in the water. What matters is not merely that we see things but how we see them.