When it comes to life the critical thing is whether you take things for granted or take them with gratitude.

We make our friends; we make our enemies; but God makes our next door neighbour.

The simple sense of wonder at the shapes of things, and at their exuberant independence of our intellectual standards and our trivial definitions, is the basis of spirituality.

"The Universe repeats itself, with the possible exception of history." Of all earthly studies history is the only one that does not repeat itself. ... Astronomy repeats itself; botany repeats itself; trigonometry repeats itself; mechanics repeats itself; compound long division repeats itself. Every sum if worked out in the same way at any time will bring out the same answer. ... A great many moderns say that history is a science; if so it occupies a solitary and splendid elevation among the sciences; it is the only science the conclusions of which are always wrong.

The aim of good prose words is to mean what they say. The aim of good poetical words is to mean what they do not say.

Playing as children means playing is the most serious thing in the world.

Your next-door neighbor is not a man; he is an environment. He is the barking of a dog; he is the noise of a piano; he is a dispute about a party wall; he is drains that are worse than yours, or roses that are better than yours.