Understanding is a very dull occupation.

To be too conscious is an illness—a real thoroughgoing illness.

Imagination is the secret and marrow of civilization. It is the very eye of faith.

The highest possible stage in moral culture is when we recognize that we ought to control our thoughts.

The march of the human mind is slow.

Sooner or later if the activity of the mind is restricted anywhere, it will cease to function even where it is allowed to be free.

Any man could, if he were so inclined, be the sculptor of his own brain.

What a torture to talk to filled heads that allow nothing from the outside to enter them.

A mind lively and at ease can do with seeing nothing, and can see nothing that does not answer.

Every thought is, strictly speaking, an afterthought.

What is the hardest task in the world? To think.

From a man’s face, I can read his character. If I can see him walk, I know his thoughts.

It is far, far better and much safer to have a firm anchor in nonsense than to put out on the troubled seas of thought.