“A vacuum of ideas affects people differently than a vacuum of air, otherwise readers of books would be constantly collapsing
“Sit in reverie, and watch the changing color of the waves that break upon the idle seashore of the mind
“The ideas gained by men before they are twenty-five are practically the only ideas they shall have in their lives.
“That deep emotional conviction of the presence of a superior reasoning power, which is revealed in the incomprehensible universe, forms my idea of God
“If you want to succeed you should strike out on new paths, rather than travel the worn paths of accepted success
“Words, when well chosen, have so great a force in them that a description often gives us more lively ideas than the sight of things themselves
“Where painting is weakest, namely, in the expression of the highest moral and spiritual ideas, there music is sublimely strong.
“We have to be creative and think of ways to make the airport more than just an airport. We need to think of ways to make it an economic-development hub
“All conservatism is based upon the idea that if you leave things alone you leave them as they are. But you do not. If you leave a thing alone you leave it to a torrent of change
“The fatal metaphor of progress, which means leaving things behind us, has utterly obscured the real idea of growth, which means leaving things inside us.
“To prejudge other men's notions before we have looked into them is not to show their darkness but to put out our own eye
“New opinions are always suspected, and usually opposed, without any other reason but because they are not already common
“The thoughts that come often unsought, and, as it were, drop into the mind, are commonly the most valuable of any we have
“Everything that is new or uncommon raises a pleasure in the imagination, because it fills the soul with an agreeable surprise, gratifies its curiosity, and gives it an idea of which it was not before possessed