In order to see birds it is necessary to become a part of the silence. One has to sit still like a mystic and wait.

Betting and gambling would lose half their attractiveness, did they not deceive us with the fancy that there may be an element of personal merit in our winnings. Our reason may protest, but our self-love is credulous.

The great pleasure of ignorance is the pleasure of asking questions. The man who has lost this pleasure or exchanged it for the pleasure of dogma, which is the pleasure of answering, is already beginning to stiffen.

I am a confirmed believer in blessings in disguise. I prefer them undisguised when I myself happen to be the person blessed; in fact, I can scarcely recognize a blessing in disguise except when it is bestowed upon someone else.

The days on which one has been most inquisitive are among the days on which one has been happiest.

There is nothing that makes us feel so good as the idea that someone else is an evil-doer.

Almost any game with any ball is a good game.

It may be that all games are silly. But then, so are most human beings.

I always feel an optimist when I emerge from a tunnel.

I foresee the time when human beings, having ceased to regard speed as a novelty, will lose much of their taste for it.