It is veneer, rouge, aestheticism, art museums, new theaters, etc. that make America impotent. The good things are football, kindness, and jazz bands.

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

Knowledge is not eating, and we cannot expect to devour and possess what we mean. Knowledge is recognition of something absent; it is a salutation, not an embrace.

You cannot prove realism to a complete sceptic or idealist; but you can show an honest man that he is not a complete sceptic or idealist, but a realist at heart. So long as he is alive his sincere philosophy must fulfil the assumptions of his life and not destroy him.

Every real object must cease to be what it seemed, and none could ever be what the whole soul desired.

The degree in which a poet's imagination dominates reality is, in the end, the exact measure of his importance and dignity.

Nature drives with a loose rein and vitality of any sort can blunder through many a predicament in which reason would despair.