Sublime

The centre of every man’s existence is a dream. Death, disease, insanity, are merely material accidents, like toothache or a twisted ankle. That these brutal forces always besiege and often capture the citadel does not prove that they are the citadel.

the spring of her heroine’s errors, and of many of ours. That spring is a philanthropy, and even a generosity, secretly founded on gentility.

The main point of Christianity was this: that Nature is not our mother: Nature is our sister. We can be proud of her beauty, since we have the same father; but she has no authority over us; we have to admire, but not to imitate. This gives to the typically Christian pleasure in this earth a strange touch of lightness that is almost frivolity.

And being good is an adventure far more violent and daring than sailing round the world.

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”