Every organism requires an environment of friends, partly to shield it from violent changes, and partly to supply it with its wants.

With the sense of sight, the idea communicates the emotion, whereas, with sound, the emotion communicates the idea, which is more direct and therefore more powerful.

It is impossible not to feel stirred at the thought of the emotions of man at certain historic moments of adventure and discovery - Columbus when he first saw the Western shore, Pizarro when he stared at the Pacific Ocean, Franklin when the electric spark came from the string of his kite, Galileo when he first turned his telescope to the heavens. Such moments are also granted to students in the abstract regions of thought, and high among them must be placed the morning when Descartes lay in bed and invented the method of co-ordinate geometry.

Without adventure civilization is in full decay. ... The great fact [is] that in their day the great achievements of the past were the adventures of the past.

Nature gets credit which should in truth be reserved for ourselves: the rose for its scent, the nightingale for its song; and the sun for its radiance. The poets are entirely mistaken. They should address their lyrics to themselves and should turn them into odes of self congratulation on the excellence of the human mind.

All practical teachers know that education is a patient process of mastery of details, minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day.

The total absence of humor from the Bible is one of the most singular things in all literature.