The spirit from which we act is the principal matter.

The world is so great and rich, and life so full of variety, that you can never lack occasions for poems.

With the growth of knowledge our ideas must from time to time be organized afresh. The change takes place usually in accordance with new maxims as they arise, but it always remains provisional.

We will burn that bridge when we come to it.

It is quite beyond me how anyone can believe God speaks to us in books and stories. If the world does not directly reveal to us our relationship to it, if our hearts fail to tell us what we owe ourselves and others, we shall assuredly not learn it from books, which are at best designed but to give names to our errors.

There are only two lasting bequests we can hope to give our children. One of these is roots, the other, wings.

What you have inherited from your forefathers, it takes work to make it your own.