“If astronomy teaches anything, it teaches that man is but a detail in the evolution of the universe, and the resemblant though diverse details are inevitably to be expected in the hosts of orbs around him. He learns that, though he will probably never find his double anywhere, he is destined to discover any number of cousins scattered through space.”

“As he walked along, consciously enjoying the early coolness of the morning, he turned and looked behind him. People often do this and are usually surprised to find that there is some reason for turning around. Sometimes there is no apparent reason and they wonder why they did it. ("Ordeal By Water")”

“If you teach a man anything, he will never learn.”

“If one makes himself master of one vital book, he shall never become a commonplace man.”

“Two months after marching through Boston,half the regiment was dead;at the dedication,William James could almost hear the bronze Negroes breathe.Their monument sticks like a fishbonein the city's throat.Its Colonel is as leanas a compass-needle.He has an angry wrenlike vigilance,a greyhound's gently tautness;he seems to wince at pleasure,and suffocate for privacy.He is out of bounds now. He rejoices in man's lovely,peculiar power to choose life and die--when he leads his black soldiers to death,he cannot bend his back.”

“How long can a man live on the outside before he loses his ability to love? How long before there's no more hope?”

“Life is a stream On which we strew Petal by petal the flower of our heart; The end lost in dream, They float past our view, We only watch their glad, early start. Freighted with hope, Crimsoned with joy, We scatter the leaves of our opening rose; Their widening scope, Their distant employ, We never shall know. And the stream as it flows Sweeps them away, Each one is gone Ever beyond into infinite ways. We alone stay While years hurry on, The flower fared forth, though its fragrance still stays.”