Tomes of aesthetic criticism hang on a few moments of real delight and intuition.

Let a man once overcome his selfish terror at his own finitude, and his finitude itself is, in one sense, overcome.

It would hardly be possible to exaggerate man's wretchedness if it were not so easy to overestimate his sensibility

Society itself is an accident to the spirit, and if society in any of its forms is to be justified morally it must be justified at the bar of the individual conscience.

The unforgivable sin is the refusal to pardon.

To most people, I fancy, the stars are beautiful; but if you asked why, they would be at a loss to reply, until they remembered what they had heard about astronomy, and the great size and distance and possible habitation of those orbs. ... [We] persuade ourselves that the power of the starry heavens lies in the suggestion of astronomical facts.

The earth has music for those who listen.