I started at a sound so strange, long-drawn, and musically wild and unearthly, that the ball of free will dropped from my hand and I stood gazing...

For what are the comprehensible terrors of man compared with the interlinked terrors and wonders of God!

Were this world an endless plain, and by sailing eastward we could for ever reach new distances, and discover sights more sweet and strange than any Cyclades or Islands of King Solomon, then there were promise in the voyage. But in pursuit of those far mysteries we dream of, or in tormented chase of that demon phantom that, some time or other, swims before all human hearts; while chasing such over this round globe, they either lead us on in barren mazes or midway leave us whelmed.

At this high moment, ability failed my capacity to describe.

With the goodness of God to desire our highest welfare, the wisdom of God to plan it, and the power of God to achieve it, what do we lack? Surely we are the most favored of all creatures.

It is hard to be finite upon an infinite subject, and all subjects are infinite.

The wisdom of God is vaster than the wisdom of man. Failure to pay attention to it will have ramifications.

The problem with any philosophical consideration is that once you open a door in your mind, you can never close it. Once you learn something, you can never convince your mind that you didn't learn it. If you learn the world is round, you can never fit in with a world that thinks it's flat.

Human thought has no limit. At its risk and peril, it analyzes and dissects its own fascination. We could almost say that, by a sort of splendid reaction, it fascinates nature; the mysterious world surrounding us returns what it receives; it is likely that contemplators are contemplated.

Also pertinent to these spirits is the execution of divine works which are done outside the order of nature, for these are most sublime among the divine ministrations... And if there be anything else that is universal and primary in the carrying out of divine ministrations, it is proper to assign it to this order.

If the sky was the limit, stars would not light our way to the edge of the universe.

I swear to you, there are divine things more beautiful than words can tell