People often manifest a diseased desire to express their will. A theory is adopted, not because the facts force it upon them, but because its adoption shows their power. The larger, the freer the nature, the less there is of this action of the will, the more the mind is led.
A mere dream, a vague hope may be more potent than certainty in a lesser matter. The faintest vision of God is more determinative of life than a gross earthly certainty.
The more nearly the performer on a musical instrument approaches perfection, the larger is that part of his execution which is unconscious. Consciousness arises with defect, or sense of something to be overcome. How conscious we are when striving to think and work in ill-health!
The highest education is that which teaches us to guide ourselves by motives which are intangible, remote, incapable of direct and material appreciation.
Weak minds find confirmation of their beliefs in the discovery of the same beliefs in other people. They do not take the trouble to find out how their neighbours obtained these beliefs. If they are current at the time, the probability is that the coincidence is worthless as any evidence of validity.
The certainty which comes of intelligent conviction is a tempered certainty. Its possessor knows the difficulty of the path by which he has reached it, and the reasons which on his way have appeared so potent against it. Fanaticism is the accompaniment of conclusions which are not the result of reason.
To understand a thing is to understand all its laws. The thing is then nothing but law, and mere matter seems to disappear.
What is it which governs the selection of truths which make up religions? Why are this and that chosen? Has not the selection a damaging effect upon the great body of truth?
Every action should be an end in itself as well as a means. The end of getting up in the morning, as Goethe says, is getting up.
We are always searching for something extraordinary which shall give life its pleasure and value. The extraordinary must be contributed by our own minds and feelings.
The real object in any human being of my love and worship is that which is not in any table of virtues, nor can I in any way describe it: it is something which perpetually escapes, which is not to be found in anything said or done.