For the misery would be not merely the absence of all other beings, but the fearful, endless, unavoidable presence of his own self. It is the lovely creatures God has made all around us, in them giving us himself, that, until we know him, save us from the frenzy of aloneness. The man who minds only himself must at last go mad if God did not interfere.

The main debts whose payment God demands are those which lie at the root of all right, those we owe in mind, and soul, and being. Whatever in us can be or make an adversary, whatever could prevent us from doing the will of God, or from agreeing with our fellow—all must be yielded...

Arrange your matters with those who have anything against you; you will have to do it, and that under less easy circumstances than now. Putting it off is of no use. The thing has to be done, and there are means of compelling you...

Neither shalt thou be delivered from the necessity of being good by being made good. Neither death nor any admittance into good company will make thee good; though, doubtless, if thou be willing and try, these and all other best helps will be given thee.

A way to avoid any demand of righteousness would be an infinitely worse way than the road to the everlasting fire, for its end would be eternal death. 

...they should have but parables—lanterns of the truth, clear to those who will walk in the light, dark to those who will not. “You choose the dark; you shall stay in the dark till the terrors that dwell in the dark frighten you, and cause you to cry out.” 

There is a thing wonderful and admirable in the parables, not readily grasped, but specially indicated by the Lord himself—their unintelligibility to the mere intellect. They are addressed to the conscience and not to the intellect, to the will and not to the imagination. They are strong and direct but not definite.