I must reject fluids and ethers of all kinds, magnetical, electrical, and universal, to whatever quintessential thinness they may be treble distilled, and as it were super-substantiated.

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.

Get your knowledge quickly and then use it. If you can use it you will retain it.

Think Big, Start Small

The zoologist is delighted by the differences between animals, whereas the physiologist would like all animals to work in fundamentally the same way.

All profoundly original work looks ugly at first.

This country was seriously divided.

Immortality no longer interests the weary old man at all.

Wisdom is not to be obtained from textbooks, but must be coined out of human experience in the flame of life.

Perhaps men who cannot love passionately are those who feel the effect of beauty most keenly; at any rate this is the strongest impression women can make on them.

It's been occurring to me I'd like to hang out with you, for my whole life.1

Conscience, that vicegerent of God in the human heart, whose "still small voice" the loudest revelry cannot drown.