In a word, they failed to take into account man's almost infinite appetite for distractions.

From their experience or from the recorded experience of others (history), men learn only what their passions and their metaphysical prejudices allow them to learn.

Civilization is sterilization.

Along this particular stretch of line no express had ever passed. All the trains--the few that there were--stopped at all the stations. Denis knew the names of those stations by heart. Bole, Tritton, Spavin Delawarr, Knipswich for Timpany, West Bowlby, and, finally, Camlet-on-the-Water.

A competent portraitist knows how to imply the profile in the full face.

Henri IV's feet and armpits enjoyed an international reputation.

The only consistent people are the dead