Occupation was one of the pleasures of paradise, and we cannot be happy without it.

In morals, what begins in fear usually ends in wickedness; in religion, what begins in fear usually ends in fanaticism. Fear, either as a principle or a motive, is the beginning of all evil.

Extreme vanity sometimes hides under the garb of ultra modesty.

Childhood sometimes does pay a second visit to man; youth never.

What we truly and earnestly aspire to be, that in some sense we are. The mere aspiration, by changing the frame of mind, for the moment realizes itself.

All my experience of the world teaches me that in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred the safe side and the just side of a question is the generous side and the merciful side.

As the presence of those we love is as a double life, so absence, in its anxious longing and sense of vacancy, is as a foretaste of death.

All government, all exercise of power, no matter in what form, which is not based in love and directed by knowledge, is a tyranny.

Nature and truth are one, and immutable, and inseparable as beauty and love.

To reason from analogy is often dangerous, but to illustrate by a fanciful analogy is sometimes a means by which we light an idea, as it were, into the understanding of another.

What we truly and earnestly aspire to be, that in some sense we are.

The saddest words I can ever imagine would be to hear the Lord say, “I never knew you. Away from Me” [Matthew 7:23 NIV].

I think the idea of embodying the physical presence of a character is the same on stage and screen. There are just different levels of expression to keep in mind for each platform.

You can't put your finger on who I am. I can't put my finger on who I am.

Many a man who pays rent all his life owns his own home; and many a family has successfully saved for a home only to find itself at last with nothing but a house.

When a day passes, it is no longer there. What remains of it? Nothing more than a story. If stories weren't told or books weren't written, man would live like the beasts, only for the day.

What does it mean when something changes how it's always been?

To the loved, a word of affection is a morsel; but to the love-starved, a word of affection can be a feast.

Never ask, "What reason do I have to be happy?" Instead ask, "To what purpose can I attach my happiness?

Practical religion consists in doing good: and the only way of serving God is that of endeavoring to make His creation happy. All preaching that has not this for its object is nonsense and hypocrisy.

Live a good long life. Grow old and die after I do. And if you can, die laughing.