The Fates, like an absent-minded printer, seldom allow a single line to stand perfect and unmarred.

Periods of tranquillity are seldom prolific of creative achievement. Mankind has to be stirred up.

Logic, like language, is partly a free construction and partly a means of symbolizing and harnessing in expression the existing diversities of things; and whilst some languages, given a man's constitution and habits, may seem more beautiful and convenient to him than others, it is a foolish heat in a patriot to insist that only his native language is intelligible or right.

It is the acme of life to understand life.

The God to whom depth in philosophy bring back men's minds is far from being the same from whom a little philosophy estranges them

Skepticism is the chastity of the intellect, and it is shameful to surrender it too soon or to the first comer.

Love is a brilliant illustration of a principle everywhere discoverable: namely, that human reason lives by turning the friction of material forces into the light of ideal goods.