[She was] a creature full of eager, passionate longings for all that was beautiful and glad; thirsty for all knowledge; with an ear straining after dreamy music that died away and would not come near to her; with a blind unconscious yearning for something that would link together the wonderful impressions of this mysterious life, and give her soul a sense of home in it.
Dogma gives a charter to mistake, but the very breath of science is a contest with mistake, and must keep the conscience alive.
We learn words by rote, but not their meaning; that must be paid for with our life-blood, and printed in the subtle fibres of our nerves.
Those who trust us educate us.
Perfect love has a breath of poetry which can exalt the relations of the least-instructed human beings.
It is very difficult to be learned; it seems as if people were worn out on the way to great thoughts, and can never enjoy them because they are too tired.
Tom had never found any difficulty in discerning a pointer from a setter, when once he had been told the distinction, and his perceptive powers were not at all deficient. I fancy they were quite as strong as those of the Rev. Mr Stelling; for Tom could predict with accuracy what number of horses were cantering behind him, he could throw a stone right into the centre of a given ripple, he could guess to a fraction how many lengths of his stick it would take to reach across the playground, and could draw almost perfect squares on his slate without any measurement. But Mr Stelling took no note of those things: he only observed that Tom's faculties failed him before the abstractions hideously symbolized to him in the pages of the Eton Grammar, and that he was in a state bordering on idiocy with regard to the demonstration that two given triangles must be equal - though he could discern with great promptitude and certainty the fact that they were equal.
Blessed is the man, who having nothing to say, abstains from giving wordy evidence of the fact.
Belief consists in accepting the affirmations of the soul; unbelief, in denying them.
We long for an affection altogether ignorant of our faults. Heaven has accorded this to us in the uncritical canine attachment.
There is a great deal of unmapped country within us which would have to be taken into account in an explanation of our gusts and storms.
The beginning of an acquaintance whether with persons or things is to get a definite outline of our ignorance.
Acting is nothing more or less than playing. The idea is to humanize life.
Rome - the city of visible history, where the past of a whole hemisphere seems moving in funeral procession with strange ancestral images and trophies gathered from afar.
The egoism which enters into our theories does not affect their sincerity; rather, the more our egoism is satisfied, the more robust is our belief.
People who can't be witty exert themselves to be devout and affectionate.
Different taste in jokes is a great strain on the affections.
A difference of taste in jokes is a great strain on the affections.
No story is the same to us after a lapse of time; or rather we who read it are no longer the same interpreters.
Animals are such agreeable friends - they ask no questions; they pass no criticisms.