Catastrophes come when some dominant institution, swollen like a soap-bubble and still standing without foundations, suddenly crumbles at the touch of what may seem a word or idea, but is really some stronger material source.

I believe in the possibility of happiness, if one cultivates intuition and outlives the grosser passions, including optimism.

Spirit itself is not human; it may spring up in any life... it may exist in all animals, and who know in how many undreamt-of beings, or in the midst of what worlds?

Love, whether sexual, parental, or fraternal, is essentially sacrificial, and prompts a man to give his life for his friends.

Wealth, religion, military victory have more rhetorical than efficacious worth.

The human mind is not rich enough to drive many horses abreast and wants one general scheme, under which it strives to bring everything.

There are books in which the footnotes, or the comments scrawled by some reader's hand in the margin, are more interesting than the text. The world is one of those books.