The necessity of knowing a little about a great many things is the most grievous burden of our day. It deprives us of leisure on the one hand, and of scholarship on the other.

We cannot hope to scale great moral heights by ignoring petty obligations.

We have but the memories of past good cheer, we have but the echoes of departed laughter. In vain we look and listen for the mirth that has died away. In vain we seek to question the gray ghosts of old-time revelers.

When the contemplative mind is a French mind, it is content, for the most part, to contemplate France. When the contemplative mind is an English mind, it is liable to be seized at any moment by an importunate desire to contemplate Morocco or Labrador.

Resistance, which is the function of conservatism, is essential to orderly advance.

Art... does not take kindly to facts, is helpless to grapple with theories, and is killed outright by a sermon.

The impulse to travel is one of the hopeful symptoms of life.