“Felicity is a continual progress of the desire, from one object to another; the attaining of the former being still but the way to the latter.”

“For it can never be that war shall preserve life, and peace destroy it.”

“Hell is truth seen too late.”

“And because the condition of man . . . is a condition of war of every one against every one, in which case every one is governed by his own reason, and there is nothing he can make use of that may ...”

“For, from the time that the Bishop of Rome had gotten to be acknowledged for bishop universal, by pretence of succession to St. Peter, their whole hierarchy, or kingdom of darkness, may be compared...”

“The source of every crime, is some defect of the understanding; or some error in reasoning; or some sudden force of the passions. Defect in the understanding is ignorance; in reasoning, erroneous o...”

“It is better to seek spirituality than materialism.”

“....I am inclined to think that these muscles and bones of mine would have gone off long ago to Megara or Boeotiaby the dog they would, if they had been moved only by their own idea of what was bes...”

“Eyes blinded by the fog of thingscannot see truth.Ears deafened by the din of thingscannot hear truth.Brains bewildered by the whirl of thingscannot think truth.Hearts deadened by the weight of thi...”

“Humans are a terrestrial species biased toward attributing the forces we see around us to familiar forces on land. But the more we look, the more we learn that everything arises from the sea and ev...”

“This beach I voyage on leads me through the earth's immortal consistencies. Each form I encounter obeys the principles of perfection and trial, a timelessness in the making. The proportions of trut...”

“That is the normal succession of things in this part of the world; you can see the various stages all over Scratch Flat. There is, for example, a small red maple swamp above my house on the northwe...”

“Today I want to belong. I want to feel safe and at home. I want to be aware of what it is like simply to be, without defenses or desires. I will appreciate the flow of life for what it is-my own tr...”

“Nature reflects the moods of the wizard.”

“My calling ties me to no office, makes me no man's slave, compels me to no action which my soul condemns. It sets me free from town life, which I loathe; and allows me to breathe clean air, to exer...”