"I believe--I daily find it proved--that we can get nothing in this world worth keeping, not so much as a principle or a conviction, except out of purifying flame or through strengthening peril. We err, we fall, we are humbled; then we walk more carefully. We greedily eat and drink poison out of the gilded cup of vice or from the beggar's wallet of avarice. We are sickened, degraded; everything good in us rebels against us; our souls rise bitterly indignant against our bodies; there is a period of civil war; if the soul has strength, it conquers and rules thereafter."

"I believe that we can get nothing in this world worth keeping, except through struggle or peril. We err, we fall, we are humbled; then we walk more carefully. If the soul has strength, it conquers and rules thereafter."
