Edwin Hubbel Chapin

Through every rift of discovery some seeming anomaly drops out of the darkness, and falls, as a golden link into the great chain of order.

Revolution does not insure progress. You may overturn thrones, but what proof that anything better will grow upon the soil?

Do not ask if a man has been through college; ask if a college has been through him; if he is a walking university.

Goodness consists not in the outward things we do, but in the inward thing we are.

Tomorrow may never come to us. We do not live in tomorrow. We cannot find it in any of our title-deeds. The man who owns whole blocks of real estate, and great ships on the sea, does not own a single minute of tomorrow. Tomorrow! It is a mysterious possibility, not yet born. It lies under the seal of midnight-behind the veil of glittering constellations.

A true man never frets about his place in the world, but just slides into it by the gravitation of his nature, and swings there as easily as a star.

Neutral men are the devil's allies.

Physically, man is but an atom in space, and a pulsation in time. Spiritually, the entire outward universe receives significance from him, and the scope of his existence stretches beyond the stars.

Death is a great revealer of what is in a man, and in its solemn shadow appear the naked lineaments of the soul.

Bigotry dwarfs the soul by shutting out the truth.

It is a most fearful fact to think of, that in every heart there is some secret spring that would be weak at the touch of temptation, and that is liable to be assailed. Fearful, and yet salutary to think of; for the thought may serve to keep our moral nature braced. It warns us that we can never stand at ease, or lie down in this field of life, without sentinels of watchfulness and campfires of prayer.