...there is in life an element of elfin coincidence which people reckoning on the prosaic may perpetually miss. As it has been well expressed in the paradox of Poe, wisdom should reason on the unforeseen.

The trouble with Christianity is, not that its failed, but that it's never been tried . . . not that it can't remake the world, but that it's difficult.

When we look upon lives so human and yet so small, we feel as if we ourselves were enlarged to an embarrassing bigness of stature. We feel the same kind of obligation to these creatures that a deity might feel if he had created something that he could not understand.

Men did not love Rome because she was great. She was great because they had loved her.

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

Man is more himself, man is more manlike, when joy is the fundamental thing in him, and grief the superficial. Melancholy should be an innocent interlude, a tender and fugitive frame of mind; praise should be the permanent pulsation of the soul.

The riddles of God are more satisfying than the solutions of man.