Great Throughts Treasury

"Doubt is the disease of this inquisitive, restless age. It is the price we pay for our advanced intelligence and civilization - the dim night of our resplendent day. But as the most beautiful light is born of darkness, so the faith that springs from conflict is often the strongest and the best."

"How it happens that the pure and holy have such firm confidence in the immortality of the soul? Do they not by a deeper instinct or intuition, recognize their spirituality, and feel that they belong more to spirit than to flesh—more to eternity than to time?"

"I do not explain—I only state it; and this is all we can do with a large proportion of all the facts and truths that we know.—There is a point, easily reached, where the simplest facts end in mystery, even as they begin in it; just as each day lies between two nights."

"Truth is as much a matter of experience as of speculation.—An honest man will generally find it.—To know it, one must feel it; above all, must live in it.—Then it becomes vital to his spirit— a part of his being."

"The greatest mathematics has the simplicity and inevitableness of supreme poetry and music, standing on the borderland of all that is wonderful in Science, and all that is beautiful in Art. "

"There is a largeness about mathematics that transcends race and time; mathematics may humbly help in the market-place, but it also reaches to the stars."