I like to walk about among the beautiful things that adorn the world; but private wealth I should decline, or any sort of personal possessions, because they would take away my liberty.

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

Tyrants are seldom free; the cares and the instruments of their tyranny enslave them.

Those who speak most of progress measure it by quantity and not by quality.

Philosophy is a more intense sort of experience than common life is, just as pure and subtle music, heard in retirement, is something keener and more intense than the howling of storms or the rumble of cities.

... even if Lucretius was wrong, and the soul is immortal, it is nevertheless steadily changing its interests and its possessions.Our lives are mortal if our soul is not; and the sentiment which reconciled Lucretius to death is as much needed if we are to face many deaths, as if we are to face only one.

The scientific value of truth is not, however, ultimate or absolute. It rests partly on practical, partly on aesthetic interests. As our ideas are gradually brought into conformity with the facts by the painful process of selection,-for intuition runs equally into truth and into error, and can settle nothing if not controlled by experience,-we gain vastly in our command over our environment. This is the fundamental value of natural science