There comes a time in each life like a point of fulcrum. At that time you must accept yourself. It is not any more what you will become. It is what you are and always will be.

How can one build a better self unless on the ruins of the old?

But I think the most harmful change brought about by Victorian science in our attitude to nature lies in the demand that our relation with it must be purposive, industrious, always seeking greater knowledge.

The privileges of knowledge have to be bought at the cost of the consolations of ignorance.

People knew less of each other, perhaps, but they felt more free of each other, and so were more individual. The entire world was not for them only a push or a switch away. Strangers were strange, and sometimes with an exciting, beautiful strangeness. It may be better for humanity that we should communicate more and more.

The supposed great misery of our century is the lack of time.

We can sometimes recognize the looks of a century ago on a modern face; but never those of a century to come.