One's friends are that part of the human race with which one can be human.

An operation that eventually kills may be technically successful, and the man may die cured; and so a description of religion thatshowed it to be madness might first show how real and warm it was, so that if it perished, at least it would perish understood.

The line between what is known scientifically and what has to be assumed in order to support knowledge is impossible to draw. Memory itself is an internal rumour.

Society itself is an accident to the spirit, and if society in any of its forms is to be justified morally it must be justified at the bar of the individual conscience.

I love moving water, I love ships, I love the sharp definition, the concentrated humanity, the sublime solitude of life at sea. The dangers of it only make present to us the peril inherent in all existence, which the stupid, ignorant, un-travelled land-worm never discovers; and the art of it, so mathematical, so exact, so rewarding to intelligence, appeals to courage and clears the mind of superstition, while filling it with humility and true religion.

There is a kind of courtesy in skepticism. It would be an offense against polite conventions to press our doubts too far.

Music contains a whole gamut of experience, from sensuous elements to ultimate intellectual harmonies.