“Thus strangely are our souls constructed, and by slight ligaments are we bound to prosperity and ruin.”

“We raise our hats to the strange phenomena.
Soul-birds of a feather flock together.”

“The fabric of our prosperity is so artificial, we have raised such a vast edifice of industry and manufacture and wealth within so narrow an area, that the progress of a hostile army through our country would shatter our prosperity with a ruin which centuries would not repair. (Hear, hear.) In proportion to the danger must be our precaution. (Cheers.) We have to protect ourselves.”

“No country can squander itself to prosperity on the ruin of its taxpayers.”

“It is the magician's bargain: give up our soul, get power in return. But once our souls, that is, ourselves, have been given up, the power thus conferred will not belong to us. We shall in fact be the slaves and puppets of that to which we have given our souls.”

“We should not forget that it will be just as important to our descendants to be prosperous in their time as it is to us to be prosperous in our time.”

“But, if it will help ease your irritated souls, please know, dearly departed, that you have ruined our lives.”

“The meaning of earthly existence lies not, as we have grown used to thinking, in prospering but in the development of the soul.”

“The gods are strange. It is not our vices only they make instruments to scourge us. They bring us to ruin through what in us is good, gentle, humane, loving.”

“Thus I saw full surely that it is readier to us to come to the knowing of God than to know our own Soul. For our Soul is so deep-grounded in God, and so endlessly treasured, that we may not come to the knowing thereof till we have first knowing of God, which is the Maker, to whom it is oned. But, notwithstanding, I saw that we have, for fulness, to desire wisely and truly to know our own Soul: whereby we are learned to seek it where it is, and that is, in God. And thus by gracious leading of the Holy Ghost, we should know them both in one: whether we be stirred to know God or our Soul, both are good and true.”