To delight in war is a merit in the soldier, a dangerous quality in the captain, and a positive crime in the statesman.

The irrational in the human has something about it altogether repulsive and terrible, as we see in the maniac, the miser, the drunkard or the ape.

Let a man once overcome his selfish terror at his own finitude, and his finitude itself is, in one sense, overcome.

Friendship is almost always the union of a part of one mind with the part of another; people are friends in spots.

why shouldnt things be largely absurd, futile, and transitory? they are so, and we are so, and they and we go together.

Men almost universally have acknowledged providence, but that fact has had no force to destroy natural aversions and fears in the presence of events.

Spirit itself is not human; it may spring up in any life... it may exist in all animals, and who know in how many undreamt-of beings, or in the midst of what worlds?