None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.

I am a part of the part that at first was all, part of the darkness that gave birth to the light, that supercilious light which now disputes with Mother Night her ancient rank and space, and yet cannot succeed; no matter how it struggles, it sticks to matter and can't get free. Light flows from substance, makes it beautiful.

We're really up against it, we poor women: A bachelor's a hard thing to convert

Great endowments often announce themselves in youth in the form of singularity and awkwardness.

Everything perfect in its kind has to transcend its own kind, it must become something different and incomparable. In some notes the nightingale is still a bird; then it rises above its class and seems to suggest to every winged creature what singing is truly like.

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.

He who cannot draw on three thousand years is living from hand to mouth.