That alone can be called true refinement which elevates the soul of man, purifying the manners by improving the intellect.--HOSEA BALLOU.
Refinement that carries us away from our fellow-men is not God's refinement.--BEECHER.
If refined sense, and exalted sense, be not so useful as common sense, their rarity, their novelty, and the nobleness of their objects, make some compensation, and render them the admiration of mankind.--HUME.
Far better, and more cheerfully, I could dispense with some part of the downright necessaries of life, than with certain circumstances of elegance and propriety in the daily habits of using them.--DE QUINCEY.
REFORM.--He who reforms himself, has done more toward reforming the public, than a crowd of noisy, impotent patriots.--LAVATER.
He that has energy enough in his constitution to root out a vice should go a little further, and try to plant a virtue in its place; otherwise he will have his labor to renew. A strong soil that has produced weeds may be made to produce wheat with far less difficulty than it would cost to make it produce nothing.--COLTON.
Time yet serves, wherein you may redeem your tarnished honors, and restore yourselves into the good thoughts of the world again. --SHAKESPEARE.
Each year one vicious habit rooted out, in time might make the worst man good.--FRANKLIN.
Reform, like charity, must begin at home.--CARLYLE.
Whatever you dislike in another person take care to correct in yourself.--SPRAT.
REGENERATION.--Content not thyself with a bare forbearance of sin, so long as thy heart is not changed, nor thy will changed, nor thy affections changed; but strive to become a new man, to be transformed by the renewing of thy mind, to hate sin, to love God, to wrestle against thy secret corruptions, to take delight in holy duties, to subdue thine understanding, and will, and affections, to the obedience of faith and godliness.--BP. SANDERSON.
He that is once "born of God shall overcome the world," and the prince of this world too, by the power of God in him. Holiness is no solitary, neglected thing; it hath stronger confederacies, greater alliances, than sin and wickedness. It is in league with God and the universe; the whole creation smiles upon it; there is something of God in it, and therefore it must needs be a victorious and triumphant thing.--CUDWORTH.