A man undertakes to jump across a chasm that is ten feet wide, and jumps eight feet; and a kind sympathizer says, “What is going to be done with the eight feet that he did jump?” Well, what is going to be done with it?  It is one of those things which must be accomplished in whole, or it is not accomplished at all.—­SERMON:  ‘The True Value of Morality.’

It is hard for a strong-willed man to bow down to a weak-willed man.  It is hard for an elephant to say his prayers to an ant.—­SERMON:  ’The Reward of Loving.’

When Peter heard the cock crow, it was not the tail-feathers that crew.  The crowing came from the inside of the cock.  Religion is something more than the outward observances of the church.—­SERMON:  ’The Battle of Benevolence.’

I have heard men, in family prayer, confess their wickedness, and pray that God would forgive them the sins that they got from Adam; but I do not know that I ever heard a father in family prayer confess that he had a bad temper.  I never heard a mother confess in family prayer that she was irritable and snappish.  I never heard persons bewail those sins which are the engineers and artificers of the moral condition of the family.  The angels would not know what to do with a prayer that began, “Lord, thou knowest that I am a scold.”—­SERMON:  ‘Peaceableness.’

Getting up early is venerable.  Since there has been a literature or a history, the habit of early rising has been recommended for health, for pleasure, and for business.  The ancients are held up to us for examples.  But they lived so far to the east, and so near the sun, that it was much easier for them than for us.  People in Europe always get up several hours before we do; people in Asia several hours before Europeans do; and we suppose, as men go toward the sun, it gets easier and easier, until, somewhere in the Orient, probably they step out of bed involuntarily, or, like a flower blossoming, they find their bed-clothes gently opening and turning back, by the mere attraction of light.—­’EYES AND EARS.’

There are some men who never wake up enough to swear a good oath.  The man who sees the point of a joke the day after it is uttered,—­because he never is known to act hastily, is he to take credit for that?—­SERMON:  ‘Conscience.’

If you will only make your ideal mean enough, you can every one of you feel that you are heroic.—­SERMON:  ‘The Use of Ideals.’

There is nothing more common than for men to hang one motive outside where it can be seen, and keep the others in the background to turn the machinery.—­SERMON:  ‘Paul and Demetrius.’

Suppose I should go to God and say, “Lord, be pleased to give me salad,” he would point to the garden and say, “There is the place to get salad; and if you are too lazy to work for it, you may go without.”—­LECTURE-ROOM TALKS:  ‘Answers to Prayer.’

God did not call you to be canary-birds in a little cage, and to hop up and down on three sticks, within a space no larger than the size of the cage.  God calls you to be eagles, and to fly from sun to sun, over continents.—­SERMON:  ‘The Perfect Manhood.’