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

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.

Lovely promise and quick ruin are seen nowhere better than in Gothic architecture.

Manhood and sagacity ripen of themselves; it suffices not to repress or distort them.

There is a kind of courtesy in skepticism. It would be an offense against polite conventions to press our doubts too far.

The superiority of the distant over the present is only due to the mass and variety of the pleasures that can be suggested, compared with the poverty of those that can at any time be felt.

Beware of long arguments and long beards.