It is a mistake to confound strangeness with mystery.
It isn’t true that the laws of nature have been capriciously disturbed; that snakes have talked; that women have been turned into salt; that rods have brought water out of rocks.
Dogmas of every kind put assertion in the place of reason and give rise to more contention, bitterness, and want of charity than any other influence in human affairs.
The mighty voice of Canada will ever call to me.
The goose we retained until this morning, when there were signs that, in spite of the slight frost, it would be well that it should be eaten without delay. Its finder has carried it off therefore to fulfil the ultimate destiny of a goose.
I cannot live without brainwork. What else is there to live for.
Anything seems commonplace, once explained.
Before turning to those moral and mental aspects of the matter which present the greatest difficulties, let the inquirer begin by mastering more elementary problems.
When you have one of the first brains of Europe up against you, and all the powers of darkness at his back, there are infinite possibilities.
Why should people ever take credit for charity when they must know that they cannot gain as much pleasure out of their guineas in any other fashion?
You never tire of the moor. You cannot think the wonderful secrets which it contains. It is so vast, and so barren, and so mysterious.
The soul is swayed by the waters.
I do hate the City of London! It is the only thing which ever comes between us.
I don’t speak for others and they don’t speak for me.
The most dangerous condition for a man or a nation is when his intellectual side is more developed than his spiritual. Is that not exactly the condition of the world today?
We surely know by some nameless instinct more about our futures than we think we know.
We balance probabilities and choose the most likely. It is the scientific use of the imagination.
There are fifty who can reason synthetically for one who can reason analytically.
I have mastered the principles of several religions. They have all shocked me by the violence which I should have to do to my reason to accept the dogmas of any one of them.
It is a fool’s plan to teach a man to be a cur in peace, and think that he will be a lion in war.