“For it matters not how small the beginning may seem to be: what is once done well is done forever.”

“A journal is a record of experiences and growth, not a preserve of things well done or said.”

“You boast of spending a tenth part of your income in charity; may be you should spend the nine tenths so, and done with it.”

“There is no beginning too small.”

“If you can speak what you will never hear, if you can write what you will never read, you have done rare things.”

“To have done anything just for money is to have been truly idle.”

“I think that we may safely trust a good deal more than we do. We may waive just so much care of ourselves as we honestly bestow elsewhere. Nature is well adapted to our weakness as our strength. The incessant anxiety and strain of some is a well nigh incurable form of disease. We are made to exaggerate the importance of what work we do; and yet how much is not done by us! or, what if we had been taken sick? How vigilant we are! determined not to live by faith if we can avoid it; all the day long on the alert, at night we unwillingly say our prayers and commit ourselves to uncertainties. So thoroughly and sincerely are we compelled to live, reverencing our life, and denying the possibility of change. This is the only way, we say; but there are as many ways as there can be drawn radii from one centre. All change is a miracle to contemplate; but it is a miracle which is taking place every instant. Confucius said, “To know that we know what we know, and that we do not know what we do not know, that is true knowledge.” When one man has reduced a fact of the imagination to be a fact to his understanding, I foresee that all men will at length establish their lives on that basis.”