A Dictionary of Burning Words

Six hundred pages of the sharpest lines from 'the literature of all ages,' filed by subject — built for orators, preachers and anyone who needs the perfect quotation.

S

25 subjects in this part of Burning Words.

Sabbath

Sabbath: There are many persons who think Sunday is a sponge with which to wipe out the sins of the week.

Sacrament

Sacrament: I have, by long and sound experience, found that the due observance of the Sabbath day, and of the duties of it, have been of…

Salvation

Salvation: The truth is the Tree of Life knows no seasons. High up among its branches spring warbles all the year; and they are only the…

Sanctification

Sanctification: Sanctification is the work of God's free grace, whereby we are renewed in the whole man after the image of God, and are…

Science

Science: All the sciences in the world never smoothed down a dying pillow. No earthly philosophy ever supplied hope in death.

Security

Security: He who stands upon his own strength will never stand.

Self-Denial

Self-Denial: There never did, and there never will exist any thing permanently noble and excellent in the character which is a stranger to…

Selfishness

Selfishness: Show me the man who would go to heaven alone if he could, and I will show you one who will never be admitted there.

Self-Righteousness

Self-Righteousness: The thing of all others that unfits men for the reception of Christ as a Saviour, and for the simple reliance on His…

Self-Surrender

Self-Surrender: Surrender yourselves then to be led and disposed of just as God pleases, with respect both to your outward and inward state.

Simplicity

Simplicity: The greatest truths are the simplest, And so are the greatest men. Nothing is more simple than greatness; indeed to be simple…

Sin

Sin: Sin is essentially a departure from God.

Sincerity

Sincerity: Sincerity and truth form the basis of every virtue. Be what thou seemest; live thy creed; Hold up to earth the torch divine; Be…

Song

Song: The best days of the church have always been its singing days.

Sorrow

Sorrow: Most of the Beatitudes which the Infinite Compassion pronounced have the sorrows of earth for their subject, but the joys of earth…

Soul

Soul: The human soul is like a bird that is born in a cage. Nothing can deprive it of its natural longings, or obliterate the mysterious…

Speaking For Christ

Speaking For Christ: It may be a very little thing for you to say to a young man the few words that turn him from the way of ruin, and win…

Spirituality

Spirituality: It is for all who are personally united to Christ to cultivate a contemplative and sanctified spirit. So far from being…

Spiritual Perception

Spiritual Perception: There will be and can be no rest till we admit, what cannot be denied, that there is in man a third faculty, which I…

Spiritual Progress

Spiritual Progress: He only is advancing in life whose heart is getting softer, whose blood warmer, whose brain quicker, whose spirit is…

Success

Success: While the man before had climbed, on sharp, flinty precipices, slippery, abysmal; in darkness, seen by no kindred eye, - amid the…

Suffering

Suffering: There is seldom a line of glory written upon the earth's face, but a line of suffering runs parallel with it; and they that read…

Sunday-School

Sunday-School: We the Sunday-school workers, what are we but the church at work? The Sunday-school is the church in futuro. Our recruits…

Superstition

Superstition: The more you study the lessons as the word of God speaking to you by the Holy Ghost, and the more you come to believe in…

Sympathy

Sympathy: The capacity of sorrow belongs to our grandeur, and the loftiest of our race are those who have had the profoundest sympathies…

Rights & ReuseThe complete text of Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895) is in the public domain in the United States — like all works published before 1928 — and is free to read, download, quote, teach from, and reuse. This digital edition (its transcription, restored images, and site design) is © 2026 PhotoOpAI, and any editorial commentary we add is clearly marked as ours; the underlying public-domain text carries no such restriction.