An ear for music is very different from a taste for music. I have no ear whatever I could not sing an air to save my life but I have the intensest delight in music and can detect good from bad.

Exclusively of the abstract sciences, the largest and worthiest portion of our knowledge consists of aphorisms: and the greatest and best of men is but an aphorism.

Common sense in an uncommon degree is what the world calls wisdom.

There is one art of which people should be masters - the art of reflection.

Humor is consistent with pathos, whilst wit is not.

A great mind must be androgynous.

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan A stately pleasure-dome decree: Where Alph, the sacred river, ran Through caverns measureless to man Down to a sunless sea.

That gracious thing, made up of tears and light.

The love of a mother is the veil of a softer light between the heart and the heavenly Father.

Religion is the most gentlemanly thing in the world. It alone will gentilize, if unmixed with cant.

Poor little Foal of an oppressed race! I love the languid patience of thy face.

You ought to follow your inner voice.

Though the funny thing about never being asked for anything is that after a while you start to feel like maybe you don’t have anything worth giving.

I am made of words. When you cut me, I bleed sentences. When you read me, I speak to your soul.

And death climbs up the steps one by one.

By what strange law of mind is it that an idea long overlooked, and trodden under foot as a useless stone, suddenly sparkles out in new light, as a discovered diamond?

The study of Nature is intercourse with the Highest Mind.

Every action is either strong or weak, and when every action is strong we are successful.

I respect more the person who struggles with his faith than the person who is confident in his skepticism.

I usually do about five cuts as a director. I haven't ever directed a film where I haven't made five passes through the movie, and that takes a long time.

The church does not simply have a missions department; it should wholly exist to be a mission.