The maxim of science is simply that of common sense-simple cases first; begin with seeing how the main force acts when there is as little as possible to impede it, and when you thoroughly comprehend that, add to it in succession the separate effects of each of the incumbering and interfering agencies.

Progress would not have been the rarity it is if the early food had not been the late poison.

The best history is but like the art of Rembrandt; it casts a vivid light on certain selected causes, on those which were best and greatest; it leaves all the rest in shadow and unseen.

A great pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do.

I'm not the kind of writer who's able to block out the world around me. I'm mindful of our own haves and have-nots, how our culture often blames and punishes the have-nots. I worry about our precarious economic and political climate.

Nothing is more unpleasant than a virtuous person with a mean mind.

The great pleasure of life is doing for pleasure things I do not like to do.