"This, and this alone, is Christianity, a universal holiness in every part of life, a heavenly wisdom in all our actions, not conforming to the spirit and temper of the world but turning all worldly enjoyments into means of piety and devotion to God."

"No education can be of true advantage to young women but that which trains them up in humble industry, in great plainness of living, in exact modesty of dress."

"If you have not chosen the Kingdom of God first, it will in the end make no difference what you have chosen instead."

"Death is not more certainly a separation of our souls from our bodies than the Christian life is a separation of our souls from worldly tempers, vain indulgences, and unnecessary cares."

"He who can be, and therefore is, another's, and he who participates in reason enough to apprehend, but not to have, is a slave by nature."

"The moral virtues, then, are produced in us neither by nature nor against nature. Nature, indeed, prepares in us the ground for their reception, but their complete formation is the product of habit."

"Shall I not have intelligence with the earth? Am I not partly leaves and vegetable mould myself."

"The most amazing thing to me about the sea is the tide. A harbour like St. Ives is totally transformed in a very short space of time by the arrival or departure of the sea."