The mind moves by instincts, associations and premonitions and not by fixed dates or completed processes. Action and reaction will occur simultaneously: or the cause actually be found after the effect. Errors will be resisted before they have been properly promulgated: notions will be first defined long after they are dead.

The only words that ever satisfied me as describing nature are the terms used in fairy books, charm, spell, enchantment; they express the arbitrariness of the fact and its mystery.

Thoughts on the Merits of Work The worst of work nowadays is what happens to people when they cease to work.

[V]ariety of climate should always go with stability of abode.... an Englishman’s house is not only his castle; it is his fairy castle. Clouds and colours of every varied dawn and eve are perpetually touching and turning it from clay to gold, or from gold to ivory. There is a line of woodland beyond a corner of my garden which is literally different on every one of the three hundred and sixty-five days. Sometimes it seems as near as a hedge, and sometimes as far as a faint and fiery evening cloud.

The danger of loss of faith in God is not that one will believe in nothing, but rather that one will believe in anything.

There is something to be said for every error; but, whatever may be said for it, the most important thing to be said about it is that it is erroneous.

It is still bad taste to be an avowed atheist. But now it is equally bad taste to be an avowed Christian.