The enormous influence of novelty--the way in which it quickens observations, sharpens sensations, and exalts sentiment--is not half enough taken note of by us, and is to me a very sorrowful matter. And yet, if we try to obtain perpetual change, change itself will become monotonous.

Once thoroughly our own, the knowledge ceases to give us pleasure.

Every duty we omit obscures some truth we should have known.

Nearly all the evils in the Church have arisen from bishops desiring power more than light. They want authority, not outlook.

If only the Geologists would let me alone, I could do very well, but those dreadful Hammers! I hear the clink of them at the end of every cadence of the Bible verses.

You can only possess beauty through understanding it.

Our duty is to preserve what the past has had to say for itself, and to say for ourselves what shall be true for the future.