Nature does not teach. A true philosophy may sometimes validate an experience of nature; an experience of nature cannot validate a philosophy. Nature will not verify any theological or metaphysical proposition (or not in the manner we are now considering); she will help to show what it means.

To be ignorant and simple now-not to be able to meet the enemies on their own ground-would be to throw down our weapons and to betray our uneducated brethren who have, under God, no defense but us against the intellectual attacks of the heathen. Good philosophy must exist, if for no other reason, because bad philosophy needs to be answered.

Be sure it is not for nothing that the Landlord has knit our hearts so closely to time and place – to one friend rather than another and one shire more that all the land.

He's wild, you know. Not like a tame lion.

and the whole forest would give itself up to jollification for weeks on end.

When things go wrong, you'll find they usually go on getting worse for some time; but when things once start going right they often go on getting better and better.

If one is only to talk from first-hand experience, conversation would be a very poor business.