The miseries of servitude, and the double-distilled misery of ignorance … the wretched retributions that hang over men's faults! I am a most miserable sorrowful soul – no not a soul. It is the want of soul within me that makes me grieve. But I am in very earnest both a continual and a secret sorrower and the only thing I have truly to rejoice at is this fast-abiding grief that I am what I am, and what I ought not to be – O God, this holy sorrow if it be not weak I beseech thee fortify it according to thy will. This sorrow for the depravity of my mental and moral condition is a divine treasure which I pray thee to preserve to me, and increase in me – Every hour convinces me of the insufficiency of man of himself to preserve and uplift himself … O God, my life is fleeting and I am lingering helplessly in misery and slavery of mind and spirit …

What a pitiful thing is man, or rather the curious animal that bears the name – unless he be a continual conqueror over the wrong within him and without. He is right heir to the majestic… if he has the character to march into his own territory and take possession… I am sometimes as wise as fifty Solomons for a few minutes in speech and writing but in hard active life there are few greater fools between me and Pendle Hill.