Facts are all accidents. They all might have been different. They all may become different. They all may collapse altogether.

The brute necessity of believing something so long as life lasts does not justify any belief in particular.

There is nothing to which men, while they have food and drink, cannot reconcile themselves.

There is no cure for birth and death save to enjoy the interval. The dark background which death supplies brings out the tender colours of life in all their purity.

The more rational an institution is the less it suffers by making concessions to others.

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

The works of nature first acquire a meaning in the commentaries they provoke.