Sublime

It is a characteristic of all things now called “efficient,” which means mechanical and calculated, that if they go wrong at all they go entirely wrong.

Nevertheless, he accepted Prime Ministers as he accepted railway trains—as part of a system which he, at least, was not the revolutionist sent on earth to destroy.

he is a poet in this real sense, that he has realised the meaning of every function he has performed.

It is still in some strange way considered unpractical to open up inquiries about anything by asking what it is.

Liberty has produced scepticism, and scepticism has destroyed liberty.

What is the good of begetting a man until we have settled what is the good of being a man?

What is the good of telling a community that it has every liberty except the liberty to make laws? The liberty to make laws is what constitutes a free people.

Their view was that cosmic truth was so important that every one ought to bear independent testimony.

But this is not a religious work, and I must submit to those very narrow intellectual limits which the absence of theology always imposes.