James Wood, comp. Dictionary of Quotations. 1899.
Chapin
Christianity has made martyrdom sublime and sorrow triumphant.
Do not ask if a man has been through college. Ask if a college has been through him.
Each thing lives according to its kind; the heart by love, the intellect by truth, the higher nature of man by intimate communion with God.
Earth has scarcely an acre that does not remind us of actions that have long preceded our own, and its clustering tombstones loom up like reefs of the eternal shore, to show us where so many human barks have struck and gone down.
Events are only the shells of ideas; and often it is the fluent thought of ages that is crystallised in a moment by the stroke of a pen or the point of a bayonet.
Gaiety is often the reckless ripple over depths of despair.
Goodness consists not in the outward things we do, but in the inward thing we are.
Impatience dries the blood sooner than age or sorrow.
Liberty is an old fact; it has had its heroes and its martyrs in almost every age.
Life is a crucible, into which we are thrown and tried. The actual weight and value of a man are expressed in the spiritual substance of the man; all else is dross.
Life, whether in this world or any other, is the sum of our attainment, our experience, our character. In what other world shall we be more surely than we are here?
Men will face powder and steel, because they cannot face public opinion.
Modest expression is a beautiful setting to the diamond of talent and genius.
Morality is but the vestibule of religion.
Neutral men are the devil’s allies.
Not in the achievement, but in the endurance, of the human soul, does it show its divine grandeur and its alliance with the infinite God.
Objects close to the eye shut out much larger objects on the horizon; and splendours born only of the earth eclipse the stars. So a man sometimes covers up the entire disc of eternity with a dollar, and quenches transcendent glories with a little shining dust.
Ostentation is the signal flag of hypocrisy.
Poetry is the utterance of truth,—deep, heartfelt truth. The true poet is very near the oracle.
Profaneness is a brutal vice; he who indulges in it is no gentleman.
Public feeling now is apt to side with the persecuted, and our modern martyr is full as likely to be smothered with roses as with coals.
Scepticism has never founded empires, established principles, or changed the world’s heart. The great doers in history have always been men of faith.
The creed of the true saint is to make the best of life, and make the most of it.
The great doers in history have always been men of faith.
The highest genius never flowers in satire, but culminates in sympathy with that which is best in human nature, and appeals to it.
The individual and the race are always moving, and as we drift into new latitudes new lights open in the heaven more immediately over us.
The mustard-seed of thought is a pregnant treasury of vast results. Like the germ in the Egyptian tombs, its vitality never perishes; and its fruit will spring up after it has been buried for long ages.
The public sense is in advance of private practice.
There are interests by the sacrifice of which peace is too dearly purchased. One should never be at peace to the shame of his own soul, to the violation of his integrity or of his allegiance to God.
Tribulation will not hurt you unless it does—what, alas! it too often does—unless it hardens you, and makes you sour and narrow and sceptical.
Truth is the root, but human sympathy is the flower of practical life.
Truth should be strenuous and bold; but the strongest things are not always the noisiest, as any one may see who compares scolding with logic.
We have not the innocence of Eden; but by God’s help and Christ’s example, we may have the victory of Gethsemane.
We move too much in platoons; we march by sections; we do not live in our vital individuality enough; we are slaves to fashion, in mind and in heart, if not to our passions and appetites.