Civilization is perhaps approaching one of those long winters that overtake it from time to time. Romantic Christendom - picturesque, passionate, unhappy episode - may be coming to an end. Such a catastrophe would be no reason for despair.

What religion a man shall have is a historical accident, quite as much as what language he shall speak.

Friends need not agree in everything or go always together, or have no comparable other friendships of the same intimacy.

Nothing can be meaner than the anxiety to live on, to live on anyhow and in any shape.

Nature is like a beautiful woman that may be as delightfully and as truly known at a certain distance as upon a closer view; as to knowing her through and through; that is nonsense in both cases, and might not reward our pains.

Our occasional madness is less wonderful than our occasional sanity.

That fear first created the gods is perhaps as true as anything so brief could be on so great a subject.