If anything can be invented more excruciating than an English Opera, such as was the fashion at the time I was in London, I am sure no sin of mine deserves the punishment of bearing it.

Certainly I do not wish that instead of these masters I had read baby books, written down to children, and with such ignorant dullness that they blunt the sense and corrupt the tastes of the still plastic human being. But I do wish that I had read no books at all till later - that I had lived with toys, and played in the open air. Children should not cull the fruits of reflection and observation early, but expand in the sun, and let thoughts come to them. They should not through books antedate their actual experiences.

Reverence the highest, have patience with the lowest. Let this day's performance of the meanest duty be thy religion. Are the stars too distant, pick up the pebble that lies at thy feet, and from it learn the all.

I accept the universe!

What concerns me now is that my life be a beautiful, powerful, in a word, a complete life of its kind.

No temple can still the personal griefs and strifes in the breasts of its visitors.

What a difference it makes to come home to a child!