Great Throughts Treasury

"Love is the beginning, the middle, and the end of everything."

"Neither genius, fame, nor love show the greatness of the soul. Only kindness can do that."

"Real excellence and humility are not incompatible one with the other, on the contrary they are twin sisters."

"Humility does not consist in hiding our talents and virtues, in thinking ourselves worse and more ordinary than we are, But in possessing a clear knowledge of all that is lacking in us and in not exalting ourselves for that which we are."

"The affections are like lightning: you cannot tell where they will strike till they have fallen."

"The universe shows us the life of God, or rather it is in itself the life of God. We behold in it his permanent action, the scene upon which his power is exercised, and in which all his attributes are reflected. God is not out of the universe any more than the universe is out of God. God is the principle, the universe is the consequence, but a necessary consequence, without which the principle would be inert, unfruitful, impossible to conceive."

"God is here below the most popular of all beings.... In the open fields, resting upon his implement of toil, the laborer lifts up his eyes towards heaven, and he names God to his children by an impulse as simple as his own soul. The poor call upon him, the dying invoke his name, the wicked fear him, the good bless him, kings give him their crowns to wear, armies place him at the head of their battalions, victory renders thanksgiving to him, defeat seeks help from him, nations arm themselves with him against their tyrants; there is neither place, nor time, nor circumstance, nor sentiment, in which God does not appear and is not named. Even love itself, so sure of its own charm, so confident in its own immortality, dares not to ignore him, and comes before his altars to beg from him the confirmation of the promises to which it has so often sworn."