A people always ends by resembling its shadow.

Not to engage in the pursuit of ideas 

is to live like ants 

instead of like men.

The moment one gives close attention to any thing, even a blade of grass, 

it becomes a mysterious, awesome, indescribably magnificent world in itself.

A good conscience is a continual Christmas.

The pursuit of perfection, then, 

is the pursuit of sweetness and light.

We haven't really paid much attention to thought as a process. 

We have engaged in thoughts, 

but we have only paid attention to the content, 

not to the process.

One eye sees, 

the other feels.

I don't pretend we have all the answers. 

But the questions are certainly worth thinking about.

An artist is a dreamer 

consenting to dream 

of the actual world.

Anything becomes interesting if you look at it long enough.

Imagination is the Discovering Faculty, 

pre-eminently. 

It is that which penetrates into the unseen worlds around us, 

the worlds of Science.

If my poetry aims to achieve anything, 

it's to deliver people 

from the limited ways 

in which they see 

and feel.

But however measurable, 

there is much more life in music 

than mathematics or logic 

ever dreamed of.

The work an unknown good man has done 

is like a vein of water flowing 

hidden underground, 

secretly making the ground green.

It is not the clear-sighted who rule the world. 

Great achievements are accomplished in a blessed, warm fog.

Of all tyrannies 

a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims 

may be the most oppressive.

Always be ready to speak your mind, 

and a base man will avoid you.

Existence is a strange bargain. 

Life owes us little; 

we owe it everything. 

The only true happiness comes
from squandering ourselves
for a purpose.

Ambition is the immoderate desire for power.

There is only one failure in life possible, 

and that is 

not to be true 

to the best one knows.

There is a saying 

that every nice piece of work needs 

the right person 

in the right place 

at the right time.

The antiquity and general acceptance of an opinion is not assurance of its truth.

One of the truest tests of integrity 

is its blunt refusal to be compromised.

Eventually, 

my eyes were opened, 

and I really understood nature. 

I learned to love at the same time.

Earth is a flower 

and it's pollinating.

Keep true to the dreams of your youth.

There are mysteries which men can only guess at, 

which age by age they may solve only in part.

It is reality that awakens possibilities, 

and nothing would be more perverse 

than to deny it.

It isn't what we don't know that gives us trouble, 

it's what we know that ain't so.

Secrecy, 

being an instrument of conspiracy, 

ought never to be the system of a regular government.

Come Fairies, 

take me out of this dull world, 

for I would ride with you upon the wind 

and dance upon the mountains 

like a flame!

Serious-minded people have few ideas. 

People with ideas are never serious.

I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead; 

I lift my eyes and all is born again.

Every child is an artist. 

The problem is how to remain an artist 

once we grow up.

Free imagination is the inestimable prerogative of youth 

and it must be cherished 

and guarded as a treasure.

I have seen great intolerance shown in support of tolerance.

Science is a perception of the world around us. 

Science is a place where what you find in nature pleases you.

Man must shape his tools 

lest they shape him.

The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; 

that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.

It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.

Falsehood is invariably the child of fear in one form or another.

Sometimes you feel you have the truth of a moment in your hand, 

then it slips through your fingers and is lost.

In fighting nature, 

man can win every battle except the last. 

If he should win that too, 

he will perish, 

like an embryo cutting its own umbilical cord.

Scepticism is the first step on the road to philosophy.

The illiterate of the future will not be the person who cannot read. 

It will be the person who does not know how to learn.

Satisfaction lies in the effort, 

not in the attainment; 

full effort is full victory.

The most difficult character in comedy is that of the fool, 

and he must be no simpleton that plays that part.

Thought is a kind of opium; 

it can intoxicate us, 

while still broad awake; 

it can make transparent the mountains 

and everything that exists.

The soul is so far from being a monad 

that we have not only to interpret other souls to ourself 

but to interpret ourself to ourself.

Though man a thinking being is defined, 

Few use the grand prerogative of mind. 

How few think justly of the thinking few! 

How many never think, who think they do!