Jun 24, 1813 - Mar 8, 1887
was a prominent Congregationalist clergyman, social reformer, abolitionist, and speaker in the mid to late 19th century.
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Astronomers have built telescopes which can show myriads of stars unseen before; but when a man looks through a tear in his own eye, that is a lens which opens reaches into the unknown, and reveals orbs which no telescope, however skilfully constructed, could do.
The blossom cannot tell what becomes of its odor, and no person can tell what becomes of his or her influence and example.
A person can no more make money suddenly and largely, and be unharmed by it, than one could suddenly grow from a child's stature to an adult's without harm.
Don't look where you fall, but where you slipped.
There can be no high civilization where there is not ample leisure.
Love is ownership. We own whom we love. The universe is God's because He loves.
Despondency is ingratitude; hope is God's worship.
Mirth is God's medicine.
Whoever makes home seem to the young dearer and more happy, is a public benefactor.
It is for men to choose whether they will govern themselves or be governed.
Good men are not those who now and then do a good act, but men who join one good act to another.
God bless the good-natured, for they bless everybody else.
God's glory is His goodness.
Men have a thousand desires to a bushel of choices.
Customs represent the experience of mankind.
The world is to be cleaned by somebody, and you are not called of God if you are ashamed to scrub.
Men go shopping just as men go out fishing or hunting, to see how large a fish may be caught with the smallest hook.
No matter who reigns, the merchant reigns.
Many a man has been dined out of his religion, and his politics, and his manhood, almost.
A boy is a piece of existence quite separate from all things else, and deserves separate chapters in the natural history of men.
There is nothing that a New-Englander so nearly worships as an argument.
If there's a job to be done, I always ask the busiest man in my parish to take it on and it gets done.
It gives one a sudden start in going down a barren, stoney street, to see upon a narrow strip of grass, just within the iron fence, the radiant dandelion, shining in the grass, like a spark dropped from the sun.
If you attempt to beat a man down and to get his goods for less than a fair price, you are attempting to commit burglary, as much as though you broke into his shop to take the things without paying for them.
God made the human body, and it is the most exquisite and wonderful organization which has come to us from the divine hand.
Christ certainly did come to destroy the law and the prophets.
Discover what you are.
Love is the wine of existence.
This world is not a platform where you will hear Thalberg-piano-playing. It is a piano manufactory, where are dust and shavings and boards, and saws and files and rasps and sandpapers. The perfect instrument and the music will be hereafter.
We are not to make the ideas of contentment and aspiration quarrel, for God made them fast friends. A man may aspire, and yet be quite content until it is time to raise; and both flying and resting are but parts of one contentment. The very fruit of the gospel is aspiration. It is to the heart what spring is to the earth, making every root, and bud, and bough desire to be more.
