This is the most enormous extension of vision of which life is capable: the projection of itself into other lives. This is the lonely, magnificent power of humanity. It is . . . the supreme epitome of the reaching out.

Mind is locked in matter like the spirit Ariel in a cloven pine. Like Ariel, men struggle to escape the drag of the matter they inhabit, yet it is the spirit that they fear.

Choices, more choices than we like afterward to believe, are made far backward in the innocence of childhood.

In the days of the frost seek an minor sun.

From the solitude of the wood, (Man) has passed to the more dreadful solitude of the heart.

Of all the unexpected qualities of an unexpected universe, the sheer organizing power of animal and plant metabolism is one of the most remarkable. . . . Where it reaches its highest development, in the human mind, we forget it completely. . . . So important does nature regard this unseen combustion . . . that a starving man's brain will be protected to the last while his body is steadily consumed.

The great artist, whether he be musician, painter, or poet, is known for this absolute unexpectedness.