Great Throughts Treasury

"As to modesty and decency, if we are simians we have done well, considering: but if we are something else - fallen angels - we have indeed fallen far."

"If men can ever learn to accept their truths as not final, and if they an ever learn to build on something better than dogma, they may not be found saying, discouragedly, every once in so often, that every civilization carries in it the seeds of decay."

"Too many moralists begin with a dislike of reality."

"Will and Wisdom are both mighty leaders. Our times worship Will."

"As time goes on, new and remoter aspects of truth are discovered, which can seldom or never be fitted into creeds that are changeless."

"We talk of our mastery of nature, which sounds very grand; but the fact is we respectfully adapt ourselves, first, to her ways."

"Creatures whose mainspring is curiosity will enjoy the accumulating of facts, far more than the pausing at times to reflect on those facts."

"You can't sweep other people off their feet, if you can't be swept off your own."