There never was an idea started that woke up men out of their stupid indifference but its originator was spoken of as a crank.

People who honestly mean to be true really contradict themselves much more rarely than those who try to be "consistent."

Little-minded peoples thoughts move in such small circles that five minutes' conversation gives you an arc long enough to determine their whole curve. An arc in the movement of a large intellect does not sensibly differ from a straight line.

No stranger can get a great many notes of torture out of a human soul; it takes one that knows it well,-parent, child, brother, sister, intimate.

The joy of life is to put out one's power in some natural and useful or harmless way. There is no other. And the real misery is not to do this.

Judges commonly are elderly men, and are more likely to hate at sight any analysis to which they are not accustomed, and which disturbs repose of mind, than to fall in love with novelties.

To be master of any branch of knowledge, you must master those which lie next to it; and thus to know anything you must know all.

Knowledge and timber shouldn't be much used till they are seasoned.

We expect more of ourselves than we have any right to, in virtue of our endowments.

Memory is a net; one finds it full of fish when he takes it from the brook; but a dozen miles of water have run through it without sticking.