If I should throw down a thousand beans at random upon a table, I could doubtless, by eliminating a sufficient number of them, leave the rest in almost any geometrical pattern you might propose to me, and you might then say that that pattern was the thing prefigured beforehand, and that the other beans were mere irrelevance and packing material. Our dealings with Nature are just like this.

It is so human a book that I don't see how belief in its divine authority can survive the reading of it.

Men are now proud of belonging to a conquering nation, and without a murmur they lay down their persons and their wealth, if by so doing they may fend off subjection.

In the deepest heart of all of us there is a corner in which the ultimate mystery of things works sadly.

Habit is a second nature, or rather, it is 'ten times nature'.

Seek out that particular mental attribute which makes you feel most deeply and vitally alive.

All natural goods perish. Riches take wings; fame is a breath; love is a cheat; youth and health and pleasure vanish.