Culture' means a long receptivity to things of the mind and the spirit.

What passes for an original opinion is, generally, merely an original phrase. Old lamps for new - yes; but it is always the same oil in the lamp.

The imagination can be happy in places where the whole man is not.

Society, by insisting on conventions, has merely insisted on certain convenient signs by which we may know that a man is considering, in daily life, the comfort of other people.

... if a person is to be unconventional, he must be amusing or he is intolerable: for, in the nature of the case, he guarantees you nothing but amusement. He does not guarantee you any of the little amenities by which society has assured itself that, if it must go to sleep, it will at least sleep in a comfortable chair.

The insidiousness of science lies in its claim to be not a subject, but a method.

... if we have a dollar to spend on some wild excess, we shall spend it on a book, not on asparagus out of season.