The State did not own men so entirely, even when it could send them to the stake, as it sometimes does now where it can send them to the elementary school.

There again," said Syme irritably, "what is there poetical about being in revolt? You might as well say that it is poetical to be sea-sick. Being sick is a revolt. Both being sick and being rebellious may be the wholesome thing on certain desperate occasions; but I'm hanged if I can see why they are poetical...It is things going right," he cried, "that is poetical! Our digestions, for instance, going sacredly and silently right, that is the foundation of all poetry...the most poetical thing in the world is not being sick.

One may understand the cosmos, but never the ego; the self is more distant than any star.

The wise old fairy tales never were so silly as to say that the prince and the princess lived peacefully ever afterwards. The fairy tales said that the prince and princess lived happily ever afterwards; and so they did. They lived happily, although it is very likely that from time to time they threw the furniture at each other.

If prosperity is regarded as the reward of virtue it will be regarded as the symptom of virtue.

Human anger is a higher thing than what is called divine discontent. For you must be angry with something; but you can be discontented with everything.

Nothing is certain by uncertainty.