The world of empirical morality consists for the most part of nothing but ill will and envy.

What do people mean when they talk about unhappiness? It is not so much unhappiness as impatience that from time to time possesses men, and then they choose to call themselves miserable.

We are pantheists as natural scientists, polytheists as poets, and monotheists as moral beings.

Faith is a homely, private capital; as there are public savings-banks and poor funds, out of which in times of want we can relieve the necessities of individuals, so here the faithful take their coin in peace.

Hatred is active, and envy passive dislike; there is but one step from envy to hate.

Wealth and speed are what the world admires, what each pursues. Railways, express mails, steamships and every possible facility for communications are the achievement in which the civilized world view and revels, only to languish in mediocrity by that very fact. Indeed, the effect of this diffusion is to spread the culture of the mediocre.

Life belongs to the living, and he who lives must be prepared for changes.