"The tempo of America is being taken as a norm to which life should be directed."

"Under the pressure of interhuman competition, all that is good and useful, ... has been completely set aside."

"The aim of the wise man was no longer the plaudits of the masses but autarkeia, or self-sufficiency."

"Altogether, it was rather like being in a somewhat spartan study centre - or perhaps even more like being in a monastery."

"The pleasure of reading is, Petrarch feels, more intimate and more intense than the satisfaction afforded by other worldly goods."

In a manner of speaking, boredom is your window on time. Once this window opens, don't try to shut it; on the contrary, throw it wide open.

"There is nothing in which people differ more than in their powers of observation."

"Falls and cascades are a great feature all through this country, as they are a marked feature in Wordsworth's poetry."

"It must always be remembered that the isolation of the self, in a deliberately lonely life, need not imply living in actual solitude."

"I have been forcibly struck with what may be called solitude in the lives of these great men."

"It is a mistake to regard his scepticism as merely negative. Like all wise scepticism it is creative and constructive."

"Cerebrotonia communes with itself, and is mentally self-sufficient. It seems to live a mentally intensive (rather than extensive) life."

"I have never succeeded in becoming completely used to existence..."

"Hamlet's knowledge and his desire for knowledge set him apart from the world. In it, he cannot be of it. He acts the part of a madman."

"Where can one be, what can one do, to find a little safe shelter in this world, and a little peace of mind ?"

"In all the arts whose raw material is of a temporal nature, the primary aim of the artist is to spatialize time."

"Let us freely and wholeheartedly yield to inner impulse, ranging in thought over every part of beauty's realm."

"Much of what goes by the name of pleasure is simply an effort to destroy consciousness."

"NATURE ! We are encompassed and embraced by her — powerless to withdraw, yet powerless to enter more deeply into her being."

"His shell was too hard—and this was the tragedy of his existence. He was reserved to excess, and kept everything locked up within himself."

"I am glad that you approve and applaud my design of withdrawing myself from all tumult and business of the world..."

"... solitude can be well fitted and set right but upon a very few persons."

"Calmness is the rarest quality in human life. It is the poise of a great nature, in harmony with itself and its ideals."

"For one thing, you may be strenuously advised to keep reading."