Photographs have the kind of authority over imagination to-day, which the printed word had yesterday, and the spoken word before that. They seem utterly real. They come, we imagine, directly to us without human meddling, and they are the most effortless food for the mind conceivable.

The great social adventure of America is no longer the conquest of the wilderness but the absorption of fifty different peoples.

The common interests very largely elude public opinion entirely, and can be managed only by a specialised class.

We are concerned in public affairs, but immersed in our private ones.

Every man whose business it is to think knows that he must for part of the day create about himself a pool of silence.

Robinson Crusoe, the self-sufficient man, could not have lived in New York city.

Ages when custom is unsettled are necessarily ages of prophecy. The moralist cannot teach what is revealed; he must reveal what can be taught. He has to seek insight rather than to preach.