The mark of a civilized man is his willingness to re-examine his most cherished beliefs.

Blood is a destiny. One's genius descends in the stream from long lines of ancestry.

Who does not feel that Nansen's account of his search for the Pole rather loses than gains in ideal satisfaction by the pretense of a few trifling acquisitions for science?

Every now and then a man's mind is stretched by a new idea or sensation, and never shrinks back to its former dimensions.

When a man holds his tongue it does not signify much. But when a woman dispenses with the office of the mighty member, when she sheathed her natural weapon at a trying moment, it means that she trusts to still more formidable enginery; to tears it may be, a solvent more powerful than that with which Hannibal softened the alpine rocks.

We have been cocksure of many things that were not so.

A river is more than an amenity, it is a treasure.