The forceps of our minds are clumsy forceps, and crush the truth a little in taking hold of it.

And all over the countryside, he knew, on every crest and hill, where once the hedges had interlaced, and cottages, churches, inns, and farmhouses had nestled among their trees, wind wheels similar to those he saw and bearing like vast advertisements, gaunt and distinctive symbols of the new age, cast their whirling shadows and stored incessantly the energy that flowed away incessantly through all the arteries of the city. ... The great circular shapes of complaining wind-wheels blotted out the heavens.

New and stirring things are belittled because if they are not belittled the humiliating question arises 'Why then are you not taking part in them?

Strength is the outcome of need.

The Athenian democracy suffered much from that narrowness of patriotism which is the ruin of all nations.

There is, though I do not know how there is or why there is, a sense of infinite peace and protection in the glittering hosts of heaven.

Nature never appeals to intelligence until habit and instinct are useless. There is no intelligence where there is no need of change.