The body is an instrument, the mind its function, the witness and reward of its operation.

Unmitigated seriousness is always out of place in human affairs.

Beauty is a pledge of the possible conformity between the soul and nature, and consequently a ground of faith in the supremacy of the good.

It is war that wastes a nations wealth, chokes its industries, kills its flower, narrows its sympathies, condemns it to be governed by adventurers, and leaves the puny, deformed, and unmanly to breed the next generation.

There must ... be in our very nature a very radical and widespread tendency to observe beauty, and to value it. No account of the principles of the mind can be at all adequate that passes over so conspicuous a faculty.

Oaths are the fossils of piety.

The soul, too has her virginity and must bleed a little before bearing fruit.