Better not be a hero than work oneself up into heroism by shouting lies.

Oxford, the paradise of dead philosophies.

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

Intolerance is a form of egotism, and to condemn egotism intolerantly is to share it.

Religion should be disentangled as much as possible from history and authority and metaphysics, and made to rest honestly on one's fine feelings, on one's indomitable optimism and trust in life.

The love of all-inclusiveness is as dangerous in philosophy as in art.

To most people, I fancy, the stars are beautiful; but if you asked why, they would be at a loss to reply, until they remembered what they had heard about astronomy, and the great size and distance and possible habitation of those orbs. ... [We] persuade ourselves that the power of the starry heavens lies in the suggestion of astronomical facts.