"God has two places He dwells in, heaven and a humble heart, so the devil has two places he dwells in, hell and a hard heart." 
Thomas Watson. 

"My son, be not curious, nor trouble yourself with idle anxieties. What is this or that to thee? "Follow thou me." For what is it to you, whether that man be such or such, or whether this man do or speak this or that? You shall not need to answer for others, but shall give account for yourself. Why therefore entangle yourself? Behold, I know all men, and see all things that are done under the sun." -Kempis

"When death, the great reconciler, has come, it is never our tenderness that we repent of, but our severity."George Elliot.

  Every now and then someone asks me if I ever fast. They may mention they went on a full day or three day fast or if zealous, a seven day fast, and ask me what I think?

Hmmm, I would always encourage fasting: fasting from time wasted that could promote the kingdom, lifetime fasting for purity, daily fasting of selfish ambitions, and once in a while you might fast a decadent desert.

 "If you would imitate Christ, take sin by the throat and the sinner by the hand." W.H.H. Murray. 

 "This world is a solemn fact; we are in it, passing through it. Let us try to understand its mysteries; let us think much of its responsibilities; let us ponder the thoughts of inspiring minds of all ages; let us prize all the light we have from man, from God, so that we may be guided aright amid its perils and changing experiences.   Alexander Reed, D.D. 

  "God can and does render sinners happy in spite of their sins, for Christ's sake, remitting to them its penalty, while its power is only partially broken, fostering them, and rejoicing over them until their restoration to spiritual health is complete. Anything that turns the sinners regard inward on himself as a ground of hope, instead of bidding him look to Christ, must plunge him into despair, and despair is the portal of death." Charles Hodge, D.D. 

 "And let our people also learn to engage in good deeds to meet the pressing needs, that they may not be unfruitful." Titus 3:14

  "Happiness, I have discovered, is nearly always a rebound from hard work. It is one of the follies of men to imagine that they can enjoy mere thought, or emotion, or sentiment. As well try to eat beauty! For happiness must be tricked! She loves to see men and women at work. She loves sweat, weariness, self-sacrifice.

  There is something fine in hard physical labor. One actually stops thinking. 

I often work long without any thought whatever, so far as I know, save that connected with the monotonous repetition of the labor itself - down with the spade, out with it, up with it, over with it -- and repeat.

And yet sometimes - mostly in the forenoon when I am not at all tired - I will suddenly have a sense as of the world opening around me - a sense of its beauty and its meanings - giving me a peculiar deep happiness, that is near complete content." David Grayson. 

  "Labored sermons sometimes sweep over the mind as winds sweep over the sea, leaving it more troubled than before; when one little hymn, child-warbled, would be to the soul like Christ’s “Peace, be still,” to the waves of Galilee.” H.W.Beecher

  

  "As I make my slow pilgrimage through the world, a certain sense of beautiful mystery seems to gather and grow. I do not know why so much that is hard and painful and sad is interwoven with our life here; but I see, or seem to see, that it is meant be so interwoven. All the best and most beautiful flowers of character and thought seem to me to spring up in the track of suffering; and what is the most sorrowful of all mysteries, the mystery of death, becomes more solemn and awe-inspiring the nearer we advance to it. I do not mean that we are to go and search for unhappiness; but, on the other hand, the only happiness worth seeking for is a happiness which takes all these dark things into account, looks them in the face, reads the secret of their dim eyes and set lips, dwells with them, and learns to be tranquil in their presence.

Arthur Benson.