The reduction of the universe to a single being, the expansion of a single being even to God, that is love.

There exist crab-like souls, which creep continually towards darkness, retrograding in life rather than advancing in it, employing experience to diminish themselves, growing continually worse, becoming more and more enveloped in increasing malignity, and retreating, not into old age, but into corruption.

Its laugh is the mouth of a volcano which spatters the whole earth.

This is not my house; it is the house of Jesus Christ. This door does not demand of him who enters whether he has a name, but whether he has a grief.

The guilty one is not the person who has committed the sin, but the person who has created the shadow.”

Be comforted, dear soul! There is always light behind the clouds; and if you wait a little, the wind will shift, and the moon will look out, and you will see that you were walking straight all the while, though you thought you had lost the road.

Be worthy, love, and love will come; for it is not won by clamors, nor bought with gold, but grows like a flower where there is light and warmth, and dies if foolish hands pluck at it in haste, or shut it up in a dark place to be kept.

I like good strong words that mean something, and I can’t abide the little elegant ones that say nothing at all; I had rather have a single honest sentence, rough and true, than a page of silken phrases that slip through your fingers and leave you empty-handed when you most want help.

I will try and be what he loves to call me—a little woman—and not be rough and wild, but do my duty here, where I am, as well as I can, because I see now that courage isn’t only for soldiers, and battles are fought in kitchens and sickrooms and hearts, where no drum is heard, and no flag is flying.

There are a good many hard times in this life of ours, but we can always bear them if we ask help in the right way, and try to do our duty bravely; for though the burdens are heavy, they grow lighter as we share them, and the road, though rough at first, gets easier to the feet that keep on walking.

I’ve got the key to my castle in the air, but whether I can unlock the door remains to be seen.

I am not afraid of storms, for I am learning how to sail my ship; and though the winds are rough, and the sky is dark, I keep my little helm steady, watching the waves with all my might, for I have faith that I shall reach the harbor at last, if I only work on bravely and wait.