“I wish from my soul that the legislature of this State could see the policy of a gradual Abolition of Slavery.”

“It is better to be alone than in bad company.”

“It is better to offer no excuse than a bad one.”

“Lenience will operate with greater force, in some instances than rigor. It is therefore my first wish to have all of my conduct distinguished by it.”

“The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism.”

“Labor to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celestial fire, called conscience.”

“The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt with the heart.”

“The only thing worse than being blind is having sight and no vision.”

“As the eagle was killed by the arrow winged with his own feather, so the hand of the world is wounded by its own skill.”

“The infinite wonders of the universe are revealed to us in exact measure as we are capable of receiving them. The keenness of our vision depends not on how much we can see, but on how much we feel.”

“I am younger today than I was at twenty-five. Of course the furrows of suffering have been dug deeper, but so have those of understanding sympathy and inner happiness. Whatever age may do to my earthly shell, I shall never grow cynical or indifferent—and one cannot measure the reserve power locked up in that assurance.”

“I long to accomplish a great and noble task, but it is my chief duty to accomplish small tasks as if they were great and noble.”

“So much has been given to me I have not time to ponder over that which has been denied.”

“Keep your face to the sunshine and you cannot see the shadows.”

“I would rather walk with a friend in the dark, than alone in the light.”

“We have prayed, we have coaxed, we have begged, for the vote, with the hope that men, out of chivalry, would bestow equal rights upon women and take them into partnership in the affairs of the state. We hoped that their common sense would triumph over prejudices and stupidity. We thought their boasted sense of justice would overcome the errors that so often fetter the human spirit; but we have always gone away empty handed. We shall beg no more.”

“Trying to write is very much like trying to put a Chinese puzzle together. We have a pattern in mind which we wish to work out in words; but the words will not fit the spaces, or, if they do, they will not match the design.”

“There is no better way to thank God for your sight than by giving a helping hand to someone in the dark.”

“Until the great mass of the people shall be filled with the sense of responsibility for each others welfare, social justice can never be attained.”

“Never bend your head. Always hold it high. Look the world straight in the face.”

“Until things are brighter, I’m the man in black.”

“How well I have learned that there is no fence to sit on between heaven and hell. There is a deep, wide gulf, a chasm, and in that chasm is no place for any man.”

“There’s no way around grief and loss: you can dodge all you want, but sooner or later you just have to go into it, through it, and, hopefully, come out the other side. The world you find there will never be the same as the world you left.”

“She’s the greatest woman I have ever known. Nobody else, except my mother, comes close.”