There are many ways of asking a favor; but to assume that you are granting the favor that you ask shows spirit and invention.

There is always a secret irritation about a laugh in which we cannot join

The sanguine assurance that men and nations can be legislated into goodness, that pressure from without is equivalent to a moral change within, needs a strong backing of inexperience.

The well-ordered mind knows the value, no less than the charm, of reticence. The fruit of the tree of knowledge ... falls ripe from its stem; but those who have eaten with sobriety find no need to discuss the processes of digestion.

Everybody is now so busy teaching that nobody has any time to learn.

The earliest voice listened to by the nations in their infancy was the voice of the storyteller.

Science may carry us to Mars, but it will leave the earth peopled as ever by the inept.