If a man sits down to think, he is immediately asked if he has a headache.

Behind us, as we go, all things assume pleasing forms, as clouds do far off. Not only things familiar and stale, but even the tragic and terrible, are comely, as they take their place in the pictures of memory.

The true preacher can be known by this, that he deals out to the people his life,--life passed through the fire of thought.

Human character evermore publishes itself. The most fugitive deed and word, the intimated purpose, express character.

A good indignation brings out all one's powers.

Science does not know its debt to imagination. Goethe did not believe that a great naturalist could exist without this faculty.

The connection between our knowledge and the abyss of being is still real, and the explication must be not less magnificent.