Towers in a modern town are a frill and a survival; they seem like the raised hands of the various churches, afraid of being overlooked, and saying to the forgetful public, Here I am! Or perhaps they are rival lightning rods, saying to the emanations of divine grace, "Please strike here!

America is the greatest of opportunities and the worst of influences.

Almost every wise saying has an opposite one, no less wise, to balance it.

The mediocrity of everything in the great world of today is simply appalling. We live in intellectual slums.

The diseases which destroy a man are no less natural than the instincts which preserve him.

Many possessions, if they do not make a man better, are at least expected to make his children happier; and this pathetic hope is behind many exertions.

The universe, as far as we can observe it, is a wonderful and immense engine.... If we dramatize its life and conceive its spirit, we are filled with wonder, terror and amusement, so magnificent is the spirit.