oneself is Nature; to receive a communication as it is
given is Culture.

Contradiction and flattery make, both of them, bad conversation.

By nothing do men show their character more than by the things they
laugh at.

An intelligent man finds almost everything ridiculous, a wise man hardly
anything.

A man well on in years was reproved for still troubling himself about
young women. "It is the only means," he replied, "of regaining one's
youth; and that is something every one wishes to do."

A man does not mind being blamed for his faults, and being punished for
them, and he patiently suffers much for the sake of them; but he becomes
impatient if he is required to give them up.

Passion is enhanced and tempered by avowal. In nothing, perhaps, is the
middle course more desirable than in confidence and reticence toward
those we love.

To sit in judgment on the departed is never likely to be equitable. We
all suffer from life; who, except God, can call us to account? Let not
their faults and sufferings, but what they have accomplished and done,
occupy the survivors.

It is failings that show human nature, and merits that distinguish the
individual; faults and misfortunes we all have in common; virtues belong
to each one separately.

It would not be worth while to see seventy years if all the wisdom of
this world were foolishness with God. The true is Godlike; we do not see
it itself; we must guess at it through its manifestations.

The real scholar learns how to evolve the unknown from the known, and
draws near the master.

In the smithy the iron is softened by blowing up the fire, and taking
the dross from the bar. As soon as it is purified, it is beaten and
pressed, and becomes firm again by the addition of fresh water. The same
thing happens to a man at the hands of his teacher.

What belongs to a man he cannot get rid of, even though he throws it
away.

Of true religions there are only two: one of them recognizes and
worships the Holy that, without form or shape, dwells in and around us;
and the other recognizes and worships it in its fairest form. Everything
that lies between these two is idolatry.

The Saints were all at once driven from heaven; and senses, thought and
heart were turned from a divine mother with a tender child, to the grown
man doing good and suffering evil, who was later transfigured into a
being half-divine in its nature, and then recognized and honored as God
himself. He stood a