Life and the world, or whatever we call that which we are and feel, is an astonishing thing. The mist of familiarity obscures from us the wonder of our being. We are struck with admiration at some of its transient modifications, but it is itself the great miracle.

The advocates of literal interpretation have been the most efficacious enemies of those doctrines whose nature they profess to venerate.

Contemporary criticism only represents the amount of ignorance genius has to contend with. . . . Time will reverse the judgement of the vulgar.

Is it not odd that the only generous person I ever knew, who had money to be generous with, should be a stockbroker.

Poetry is a sword of lightning, ever unsheathed, which consumes the scabbard that would contain it.

There Is No God. This negation must be understood solely to affect a creative Deity. The hypothesis of a pervading Spirit co-eternal with the universe remains unshaken.

It is only by hearsay (by word of mouth passed down from generation to generation) that whole peoples adore the God of their fathers and of their priests: authority, confidence, submission and custom with them take the place of conviction or of proofs: they prostrate themselves and pray, because their fathers taught them to prostrate themselves and pray: but why did their fathers fall on their knees?