The teacher must derive not only the capacity, but the desire, to observe natural phenomena. The teacher must understand and feel her position of observer: the activity must lie in the phenomenon.
Nothing contributes so much to tranquilizing the mind as a steady purpose — a point on which the soul may fix its intellectual eye.
Reading furnishes the mind only with materials of knowledge; it is thinking that makes what we read ours.
The actions of men are the best interpreters of their thoughts.
The essence of knowledge is, having it, to apply it; not having it, to confess your ignorance.
He who learns but does not think, is lost! He who thinks but does not learn is in great danger.
Any great work of art . . . revives and readapts time and space, and the measure of its success is the extent to which it makes you an inhabitant of that world — the extent to which it invites you in and lets you breathe its strange, special air.
Music . . . can name the unnameable and communicate the unknowable.