Men rush towards complexity, but they yearn towards simplicity. They try to be kings; but they dream of being shepherds.

Life is indeed terribly complicated—to a man who has lost his principles.

I am not absentminded. It is the presence of mind that makes me unaware of everything else.

There is the great lesson of 'Beauty and the Beast,' that a thing must be loved before it is lovable.

I need not pause to explain that crime is not a disease. It is criminology that is a disease.

...It's natural to believe in the supernatural. It never feels natural to accept only natural things.

Americans have a taste for…rocking-chairs. A flippant critic might suggest that they select rocking-chairs so that, even when they are sitting down, they need not be sitting still. Something of this restlessness in the race may really be involved in the matter; but I think the deeper significance of the rocking-chair may still be found in the deeper symbolism of the rocking-horse. I think there is behind all this fresh and facile use of wood a certain spirit that is childish in the good sense of the word; something that is innocent, and easily pleased.