Despite the never ending play of conscious correction and instruction, the surrounding atmosphere and spirit is in the end the chief agent in forming manners.

If the eyes are open and there is light, seeing occurs; the stimulus is but a condition of the fulfillment of the proper function of the organ, not an outside interruption. To some extent, then, all direction or control is a guiding of activity to its own end; it is an assistance in doing fully what some organ is already tending to do.

Inference is always an invasion of the unknown, a leap from the known.

The acquisition however perfectly of skills is not an end in itself. They are things to be put to use as a contribution to a common and shared life.

A man really living alone (alone mentally as well as physically) would have little or no occasion to reflect upon his past experience to extract its net meaning.

Like the soil, mind is fertilized while it lies fallow, until a new burst of bloom ensues.

...the moment of passage from disturbance into harmony is that of intensest life.