it’s the consistent men who keep the devil busy, because no one’s ever really consistent except in his cussedness.   It’s been my experience that consistency is simply a steel hoop around a small mind it keeps it from expanding.

We have all condemned in the past what we now accept. This recollection should make us hesitate before we voice our protests.

If we are weak, sinful, corrupt, it is better to know and feel the true state of the case than to live in a fool’s paradise.

We think that we hate falsehood when we are only hating the consequences of falsehood.  
We resent hypocrisy, and treachery, and calumny, not because they are untrue, but because they harm us.   
We hate the false calumny, but we are half pleased with the false prais

 If the transaction is unworthy, or has not succeeded, they minish, or pass lightly over, their own share in it.   If the transaction has been successful, or merits praise, immediately their own share in it grows eminently conspicuous.

Whenever, therefore, parents or teachers, or elder persons, terrorise the young, they sow the seeds of falsehood.

a lie may be told by silence, by equivocation, by the accent on a syllable, by a glance of the eye attaching a peculiar significance to a sentence;  and all these kinds of lies are worse and baser by many degrees than a lie plainly worded;

‘Thou shalt not kill “:  good!  but there are many things in life, not usually called killing, which yet seem to kill.   The stinging word, the pitiless act, the betrayed trust, the broken pledge – these shorten men’s days.

If thou hast heard a word, let it die with thee, and be bold, it will not burst thee.

Love is the only remedy for slander:  no set of rules or restrictions can stop it;  we may denounce, but we shall denounce in vain.   The radical cure of it is Charity…