The mind of the Renaissance was not a pilgrim mind, but a sedentary city mind, like that of the ancients.

The young man who has not wept is a savage, and the older man who will not laugh is a fool.

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

There is no greater stupidity or meanness than to take uniformity for an ideal, as if it were not a benefit and a joy to a man, being what he is, to know that many are, have been, and will be better than he.

He thinks he believes only what he sees, but he is much better at believing than at seeing.

The superiority of the distant over the present is only due to the mass and variety of the pleasures that can be suggested, compared with the poverty of those that can at any time be felt.

The earth has music for those who listen.