Without mountains the air could not be purified, nor the flowing of the rivers sustained.

The question is not what man can scorn, or disparage, or find fault with, but what he can love, and value, and appreciate.

Beauty deprived of its proper foils and adjuncts ceases to be enjoyed as beauty, just as light deprived of all shadows ceases to be enjoyed as light.

Everything that you can see in the world around you presents itself to your eyes only as an arrangement of patches of different colors.

I believe the first test of a truly great man is in his humility.

The greatest thing a human soul ever does in this world is to see something and tell what it saw in a plain way. Hundreds of people can talk for one who can think, but thousands can think for one who can see. To see clearly is poetry, prophecy and religion, all in one.

Government and cooperation are in all things the laws of life. Anarchy and competition, the laws of death.