Quotes from J. G. Holland

Everything good in a man thrives best when properly recognized.

The theological systems of men and schools of men are determined always by the character of their ideal of Christ, the central fact of the Christian system.

Who never walks save where he sees men's tracks makes no discoveries.

It is better to be a self-made man,--filled up according to God's original pattern,--than to be half a man, made after some other man's pattern.

A man does not necessarily sin who does that which our reason and our conscience condemn.

There is really nothing left to a genuine idle man, who possesses any considerable degree of vital power, but sin.

The idle man stands outside of God's plan, outside of the ordained scheme of things; and the truest self-respect, the noblest independence, and the most genuine dignity, are not to be found there.

The moment that law is destroyed, liberty is lost, and men, left free to enter upon the domains of each other, destroy each other's rights, and invade the field of each other's liberty.

It is not a question how much a man knows, but what use he can make of what he knows.

A nation is a thing that lives and acts like a man and men are the particles of which it is composed.

In my judgment, a great mistake has been made by well meaning and zealous men, through treating error and infidelity with altogether too much respect.

The man who loves home best, and loves it most unselfishly, loves his country best.

The faculty of self-help is that which distinguished man from animals; that it is the Godlike element, or holds within itself the Godlike element, of his constitution.

There is nothing more precious to a man than his will; there is nothing which he relinquishes with so much reluctance.

Laws are the very bulkwarks of liberty; they define every man's rights, and defend the individual liberties of all men.

There is no great achievement that is not the result of patient working and waiting.

The temple of art is built of words. Painting and sculpture and music are but the blazon of its windows, borrowing all their significance from the light, and suggestive only of the temple's uses.

Geology gives us a key to the patience of God.

A young man rarely gets a better vision of himself than that which is reflected from a true woman's eyes; for God himself sits behind them.

I count this thing to be grandly true: That a noble deed is a step toward God-- Lifting the soul from the common clod To a purer air and a broader view.

God gives every bird its food, but He does not throw it into the nest. He does not unearth the good that the earth contains, but He puts it in our way, and gives us the means of getting it ourselves.

There are no twin souls in God's universe.

There are crowds who trample a flower into the dust without thinking once that they have one of the sweetest thoughts of God under their heel.

if have got my spindle and my distaff ready--my pen and mind--never doubting for an instant that God will send me flax.