The gothic is singular in this; one seems easily at home in the renaissance; one is not too strange in the Byzantine; as for the Roman, it is ourselves; and we could walk blindfolded through every chink and cranny of the Greek mind; all these styles seem modern when we come close to them; but the gothic gets away.

One friend in a lifetime is much; two are many; three are hardly possible.

We combat obstacles in order to get repose, and when got, the repose is insupportable.

They know enough who know how to learn.

American society is a sort of flat, fresh-water pond which absorbs silently, without reaction, anything which is thrown into it.

One friend in a life-time is much; two are many; three are hardly possible. Friendship needs a certain parallelism of life, a community of thought, a rivalry of aim.

One sought not absolute truth. One sought only a spool on which to wind the thread of history without breaking it.