By "essence" I understand a universal, of any degree of complexity and definition, which may be given immediately, whether to sense or to thought.... This object of pure sense or pure thought, with no belief superadded, an object inwardly complete and individual, but without external relations or physical status, is what I call an essence.

love make us poets, and the approach of death should make us philosophers.

Not to believe in love is a great sign of dullness. There are some people so indirect and lumbering that they think all real affection rests on circumstantial evidence.

Proofs are the last thing looked for by a truly religious mind which feels the imaginary fitness of its faith.

Never build your emotional life on the weaknesses of others.

The working of great institutions is mainly the result of a vast mass of routine, petty malice, self interest, carelessness and sheer mistake. Only a residual fraction is thought.

What is false in the science of facts may be true in the science of values.