In the highest civilization the book is still the highest delight.

To me, however, the question of the times resolved itself into a practical question of the conduct of life. How shall I live? We are incompetent to solve the times. Our geometry cannot span the huge orbits of the prevailing ideas, behold their return, and reconcile their opposition. We can only obey our own polarity.

We learn geology the morning after the earthquake.

Cause and effect are two sides of one fact.

The corruption of man is followed by the corruption of language. ... In due time, the fraud is manifest, and words lose all power to stimulate the understanding or the affections.

The consciousness in each man is a sliding scale, which identifies him now with the First Cause, and now with the flesh of his body; life above life, in infinite degrees.

And truly it demands something godlike in him who cast off the common motives of humanity and ventured to trust himself for a taskmaster.