The religion that is afraid of science dishonors God and commits suicide. Every influx of atheism, of skepticism, is thus made useful as a mercury pill assaulting and removing a diseased religion, and making way for truth.

Proportion is almost impossible to human beings. There is no one who does not exaggerate.

The best conversation is rare. Society seems to have agreed to treat fictions as realities, and realities as fictions; and the simple lover of truth, especially if on very high grounds, as a religious or intellectual seeker, finds himself a stranger and alien.

Let us not be too much acquainted. I would have a man enter his house through a hall filled with heroic and sacred sculptures, that he might not want the hint of tranquillity and self-poise.

A vivid thought brings the power to paint it; and in proportion to the depth of its source is the force of its projection.

A man becomes what he thinks about most of the time

There is, in all great poets, a wisdom of humanity which is superior to any talents they exercise.