Our occasional madness is less wonderful than our occasional sanity.

Christianity persecuted, tortured, and burned. Like a hound it tracked the very scent of heresy. It kindled wars, and nursed furious hatreds and ambitions... Man, far from being freed from his natural passions, was plunged into artificial ones quite as violent and much more disappointing.

Beauty as we feel it is something indescribable; what it is or what it means can never be said.

The same battle in the clouds will be known to the deaf only as lightning and to the blind only as thunder.

Before you contradict an old man, my fair friend, you should endeavour to understand him.

It is easier to make a saint out of a libertine than out of a prig.

...science is nothing but developed perception, interpreted intent, common-sense rounded out and minutely articulated. It is therefore as much an instinctive product, as much a stepping forth of human courage in the dark, as is any inevitable dream or impulsive action.