“As it is the characteristic of great wits to say much in few words, so small wits seem to have the gift of speaking much and saying nothing. ”

“Acts have their being in the witness. Without him who can speak of it? In the end one could even say that the act is nothing, the witness all.”

“Half-wits talk much, but say little.”

“Too much of our history will seem to have taken place in the halls of capitols, where the accusers have mostly been guilty, and so have borne witness to nothing.”

“There seemed to be so much to say, but no words adequate to say it.”

“And now we look upon the earth and sky. This spread of naked rock and peaks and moonlight is like a world ready to be born, a world that waits. It seems to us it asks a sign from us, a spark, a first commandment. We cannot know what word we are to give, nor what great deed this earth expects to witness. We know it waits. It seems to say it has great gifts to lay before us. We are to speak. We are to give its goal, its highest meaning to all this glowing space of rock and sky.”