"The first step to improvement, whether mental, moral, or religious, is to know ourselves – our weaknesses, errors, deficiencies, and sins, that, by divine grace, we may overcome and turn from them all."

“This world is the land of the dying ; the next is the land of the living.”

“Credulity is belief on slight evidence, with no evidence, or or against evidence. In this sense it is the infidel, not the believer, who is credulous. 'The simple,' says Solomon, 'believeth every word.'”

“Contemplation is to knowledge, what digestion is to food – the way to get life out of it.”

“The leaves in autumn do not change color from the blighting touch of frost, but from the process of natural decay. They fall when the fruit is ripened, and their work is done. And their splendid coloring is but their graceful and beautiful surrender of life when they have finished their summer offering of service to God and man. And one of the great lessons the fall of the leaf teaches is this : Do your work well, and then be ready to depart when God shall call.”

“Always have a book at hand, in the parlor, on the table, for the family ; a book of condensed thought and striking anecdote, of sound maxims and truthful apothegms. It will impress on your own mind a thousand valuable suggestions, and teach your children a thousand lessons of truth and duty. Such a book is a casket of jewels for your household.”

“People never improve unless they look to some standard or example higher and better than themselves.”