The muffled syllables that Nature speaks Fill us with deeper longing for her word; She hides a meaning that the spirit seeks, She makes a sweeter music than is heard.

The tide of evolution carries everything before it, thoughts no less than bodies, and persons no less than nations.

Nothing can so pierce the soul as the uttermost sigh of the body.

It is a pleasant surprise to him (the pure mathematician) and an added problem if he finds that the arts can use his calculations, or that the senses can verify them, much as if a composer found that sailors could heave better when singing his songs.

People are usually more firmly convinced that their opinions are precious than that they are true.

To substitute judgments of fact for judgments of value is a sign of pedantic and borrowed criticism.

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