I am not very proud of being an human being; in fact, I distinctly dislike the species in many ways. I can readily conceive of beings vastly superior in every respect.
Man’s respect for the imponderables varies according to his mental constitution and environment. Through certain modes of thought and training, it can be elevated tremendously, yet there is always a limit.
But more wonderful than the lore of old men and the lore of books is the secret lore of ocean.
Blue, green, grey, white, or black; smooth, ruffled, or mountainous; that ocean is not silent.
All rationalism tends to minimalise the value and the importance of life and to decrease the sum total of human happiness.
If religion were true, its followers would not try to bludgeon their young into an artificial conformity; but would merely insist on their unbending quest for truth, irrespective of artificial backgrounds or practical consequences.
Fear is our deepest and strongest emotion, and the one which best lends itself to the creation of nature-defying illusions.
The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.
Unhappy is he to whom the memories of childhood bring only fear and sadness.
I fear my enthusiasm flags when real work is demanded of me.
To the scientist there is the joy in pursuing truth which nearly counteracts the depressing revelations of truth.
What a man does for pay is of little significance. What he is, as a sensitive instrument responsive to the world’s beauty, is everything!
Imagination is a very potent thing, and in the uneducated often usurps the place of genuine experience.
The appeal of the spectrally macabre is generally narrow because it demands from the reader a certain degree of imagination and a capacity for detachment from everyday life.
That metre itself forms an essential part of all true poetry is a principle which not even the assertions of an Aristotle or the pronouncements of a Plato can disestablish.