The central idea of poetry is the idea of guessing right, like a child.

Either criticism is no good at all (a very defensible position) or else criticism means saying about an author the very things that would have made him jump out of his boots.

Reason is itself a matter of faith. It is an act of faith to assert that our thoughts have any relation to reality at all.

To mix science up with philosophy is only to produce a philosophy that has lost all its ideal value and a science that has lost all its practical value. It is for my private physician to tell me whether this or that food will kill me. It is for my private philosopher to tell me whether I ought to be killed.

Mr. Blatchford says that there was not a Fall but a gradual rise. But the very word "rise" implies that you know toward what you are rising. Unless there is a standard you cannot tell whether you are rising or falling. But the main point is that the Fall like every other large path of Christianity is embodied in the common language talked on the top of an omnibus. Anybody might say, "Very few men are really Manly." Nobody would say, "Very few whales are really whaley."

Truth is sacred; and if you tell the truth too often nobody will believe it.

What a glorious garden of wonders the lights of Broadway would be to anyone lucky enough to be unable to read.