Embryos think with each stage of their development that they have now reached the only condition that really suits them. This, they say, must certainly be their last, inasmuch as its close will be so...

Words are clothes that thoughts wear

The world is naturally averse to all truth it sees or hears but swallows nonsense and a lie with greediness and gluttony.

Prayers are to men as dolls are to children.

To do great work one must be very idle as well as very industrious.

I have never written on any subject unless I believed that the authorities on it were hopelessly wrong.

[P]oetry resembles metaphysics: one does not mind one’s own, but one does not like anyone else’s.

If, again, the most superficial introspection teaches the physiologist that his conscious life is dependent upon the mechanical adjustments of his body, and that inversely his body is subjected with certain limitations to his will,...

Exploring is delightful to look forward to and back upon, but it is not comfortable at the time, unless it be of such an easy nature as not to deserve the name.

Friendship is like money, easier made than kept.

Don’t learn to do, but learn in doing.

I remember one incident which bears upon this part of the treatise. The gentleman who gave it to me had asked to see my tobacco-pipe; he examined it carefully, and when he came to the...

Every man’s work, whether it be literature, or music or pictures or architecture or anything else, is always a portrait of himself.

Man is the only animal that can remain on friendly terms with the victims he intends to eat until he eats them.

Theist and atheist: The fight between them is as to whether God shall be called God or shall have some other name.

Books are like imprisoned souls till someone takes them down from a shelf and frees them.

Sensible people get the greater part of their own dying done during their own lifetime

Mention but the word “divinity,” and our sense of the divine is clouded.

The oldest books are still only just out to those who have not read them.

A definition is the enclosing a wilderness of idea within a wall of words.

The greatest pleasure of a dog is that you may make a fool of yourself with him, and not only will he not scold you, but he will make a fool of himself, too.

Books are like imprisoned souls until someone takes them down from a shelf and frees them.

We all love best not those who offend us least, nor those who have done most for us, but those who make it most easy for us to forgive them.

Logic is like the sword–those who appeal to it shall perish by it.

It has been said that although God cannot alter the past, historians can –it is perhaps because they can be useful to Him in this respect that He tolerates their existence.

A blind man knows he cannot see, and is glad to be led, though it be by a dog; but he that is blind in his understanding, which is the worst blindness of all, believes...

Loyalty is still the same, whether it win or lose the game; true as a dial to the sun, although it be not shined upon.

Having, then, once introduced an element of inconsistency into his system, he was far too consistent not to be inconsistent consistently, and he lapsed ere long into an amiable indifferentism which to outward appearance differed...

Autumn is the mellower season, and what we lose in flowers we more than gain in fruits.

Peter remained on friendly terms with Christ notwithstanding Christ’s having healed his mother-in-law.

All animals except man know that the principal business of life is to enjoy it.

We want words to do more than they can. We try to do with them what comes to very much like trying to mend a watch with a pickaxe or to paint a miniature with...

We pay a person the compliment of acknowledging his superiority whenever we lie to them.