Every nation thinks its own madness normal and requisite; more passion and more fancy it calls folly, less it calls imbecility.

Existence is a miracle, and, morally considered, a free gift from moment to moment.

Religious doctrines would do well to withdraw their pretension to be dealing with matters of fact. That pretension is not only the source of the conflicts of religion with science and the vain and bitter controversies of sects; it is also the cause of the impurity and incoherence of religion in the soul.

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

The only kind of reform usually possible is reform from within; a more intimate study and more intelligent use of the traditional forms.

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.

The muffled syllables that Nature speaks Fill us with deeper longing for her word; She hides a meaning that the spirit seeks, She makes a sweeter music than is heard.