The moral nature of man is more sacred in my eyes than his...

The moral nature of man is more sacred in my eyes than his intellectual nature. I know they cannot be divorced -- that without intelligence we should be brutes -- but it is the tendency of our gaping, wondering dispositions to give pre-eminence to those faculties which most astonish us. Strength of character seldom, if ever, astonishes; goodness, lovingness, and quiet self-sacrifice, are worth all the talents in the world.