An abundance of some good things is perfectly compatible with the scarcity of others; that life is everywhere precarious, man everywhere small.

To have passed through life and never experienced solitude is to have never known oneself. To have never known oneself is to have never known anyone.

It is not ignorance but knowledge which is the mother of wonder.

In history as it comes to be written, there is usually some Spirit of the Age which historians can define, but the shape of things is seldom so clear to those who live them. To most thoughtful men it has generally seemed that theirs was an Age of Confusion.

Two-legged creatures we are supposed to love as we love ourselves. The four-legged, also, can come to seem pretty important. But six legs are too many from the human standpoint.

We need some contact with the things we sprang from. We need nature at least as a part of the context of our lives. Without cities we cannot be civilized. Without nature, without wilderness even, we are compelled to renounce an important part of our heritage.

If we do not permit the earth to produce beauty and joy, it will in the end not produce food, either.