It is disastrous to own more of anything than you can possess, and it is one of the most fundamental laws of human nature that our power actually to possess is limited.

Those whose conscience demands that they defy authority in some ways that involve great consequences must be willing to accept some penalty.

In the long run our boasted control of nature is a delusion.

Technology made large populations possible; large populations now make technology indispensable.

Few people have ever seriously wished to be exclusively rational. The good life which most desire is a life warmed by passions and touched with that ceremonial grace which is impossible without some affectionate loyalty to traditional form and ceremonies.

If we are deprived of hope as well as fear, we are compensated by being given an almost endless patience for enduring or simply for waiting.

The typical American believes that no necessity of the soul is free and that there are precious few, if any, which cannot be bought.