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The affectionate heart of my aunt, Catherine Porten, bewailed a sister and a friend; but my poor father was inconsolable, and the transport of grief seemed to threaten his life or his reason.

If sorrow in its reaction makes us think of our friends, let my name come among the list of yours to you, and with it let the thought come that I am not the coldest and least sincere.

In our sorrow we see the rough side of the stuff; in our joys the smooth; and who shall say that when the taffeta is turned the most silk may not be in the sorrows?

Once I wished not to live, but the faculty of life seems to have sprung up in me again, from under the crushing foot of heavy grief.

Perhaps when all is written courageously, I shall have no courage left to publish it.

The unity of God preserves a unity in men--that is, a perpetual sympathy between man and man--which sympathy we must be subject to, if not in our joys, yet in our griefs.

you would wonder at seeing how possible it is to live as secludedly in the midst of a multitude as in the centre of solitude

There is only one event in my life which never loses its bitterness; which comes back on me like a retreating wave, going and coming again, which was and is my grief--I never had but one brother who loved and comprehended me.

When gone from hence, may nobody think of me again, except when one or two may think perhaps how I loved them

During this night journey I put myself both in feeling and in fact in a blind man's place—the best lesson I ever had to develop deliberation and keenness of touch.

Always remember what is your own, and what belongs to another; and you will not be disturbed.

Does it seem to you so small and worthless a thing to be good and happy?

If a man is unhappy, remember that his unhappiness is his own fault; for God has made all men to be happy, to be free from perturbations.

If he did not want something which is not in his power, how could he be anxious?

In my opinion no man has had a more profitable difficulty than you have had, if you choose to make use of it as an athlete would deal with a young antagonist.

It is circumstances (difficulties) which show what men are.

It is not possible that what is by nature free can be disturbed by anything else, or hindered by any other thing than by itself.

Most of us are afraid of mortification of the body, and would contrive all means to avoid such a thing, but we care not about the soul’s mortification.

Therefore when a difficulty falls upon you, remember that God, like a trainer of wrestlers, has matched you with a rough young man.

Why then are you anxious about that which belongs to others?

Will you not go back, and you will see clearer when you have laid aside fear?

Wretch, you are carrying about a god with you, and you know it not.

Men are disturbed not by the things which happen, but by the opinions about the things

Seek not that the things which happen should happen as you wish; but wish the things which happen to be as they are, and you will have a tranquil flow of life

I am by Nature made for my own good; not for my own evil.