Intelligence is quickness to apprehend as distinct form ability, which is capacity to act wisely on the thing apprehended.

The motive of success is not enough.

As society is now constituted, a literal adherence to the moral precepts scattered throughout the Gospels would mean sudden death.

Other nations of different habits are not enemies: they are godsends. Men require of their neighbours something sufficiently akin to be understood, something sufficiently different to provoke attention, and something great enough to command admiration. We must not expect, however, all the virtues.

Without adventure all civilization is full of decay. Adventure rarely reaches its predetermined end. Columbus never reached China.

What the learned world tends to offer is one second-hand scrap of information illustrating ideas derived from another second-hand scrap of information. The second-handedness of the learned world is the secret of its mediocrity.

The consequences of a plethora of half-digested theoretical knowledge are deplorable.