In each person I catch the fleeting suggestion of something beautiful and swear eternal friendship with that.

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.

Emotion is primarily about nothing and much of it remains about nothing to the end.

To be an American is of itself almost a moral condition, an education, and a career.

Wisdom comes from disillusionment.

To attempt to be religious without practicing a specific religion is as possible as attempting to speak without a specific language.

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