We are for the most part more lonely when we go abroad among men than when we stay in our chambers.
We perceive and are affected by changes too subtle to be described.
A man receives only what he is ready to receive, whether physically or intellectually or morally, as animals conceive at certain seasons their kind only. We hear and apprehend only what we already half know.
Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity!
We shall be reduced to gnaw the very crust of the earth for nutriment.
My desire for knowledge is intermittent; but my desire to commune with the spirit of the universe, to be intoxicated with the fumes, call it, of that divine nectar, to bear my head through atmospheres and over heights unknown to my feet, is perennial and constant.