I am primarily engaged to myself to be a public servant of all the gods, to demonstrate to all men that there is intelligence andgood will at the heart of all things, and even higher and yet higher leadings. These are my engagements; how can your law further or hinder me in what I shall do to men?

When I behold a rich landscape, it is less to my purpose to recite correctly the order and superposition of the strata, than to know why all thought of multitude is lost in a tranquil sense of unity.

When it's dark enough men see stars.

Every great achievement is the victory of a flaming heart.

The use of natural history is to give us aid in supernatural history: the use of the outer creation, to give us language for the beings and changes of the inward creation.

A human being should beware how he laughs, for then he shows all his faults.

We judge of a man's wisdom by his hope, knowing that the inexhaustibleness of nature is an immortal youth.