One of the peculiarities of recent speculation, especially in America, is that ideas are abandoned in virtue of a mere change of feeling, without any new evidence or new arguments. We do not nowadays refute our predecessors, we pleasantly bid them good-bye.

Men almost universally have acknowledged providence, but that fact has had no force to destroy natural aversions and fears in the presence of events.

It takes a wonderful brain and exquisite senses to produce a few stupid ideas.

Words are weapons, and it is dangerous . . . to borrow them from the arsenal of the enemy.

Beauty as we feel it is something indescribable; what it is or what it means can never be said.

I like to walk about amidst the beautiful things that adorn the world.

If you prefer illusions to realities, it is only because all decent realities have eluded you and left you in the lurch; or else your contempt for the world is mere hypocrisy and funk.