I am not a very good man, Effie, but I think that I am a better one than you have given me credit for being.

I cannot live without brainwork. What else is there to live for? Stand at the window here. Was ever such a dreary, dismal, unprofitable world? See how the yellow fog swirls down the street and drifts across the duncoloured houses. What could be more hopelessly prosaic and material?

Do you remember what Darwin says about music? He claims that the power of producing and appreciating it existed among the human race long before the power of speech was arrived at. Perhaps that is why we are so subtly influenced by it. There are vague memories in our souls of those misty centuries when the world was in its childhood.' That's a rather broad idea,' I remarked. One's ideas must be as broad as Nature if they are to interpret Nature,' he answered.

Never trust to general impressions, my boy, but concentrate yourself upon details.

We must look for consistency. Where there is a want of it we must suspect deception.

There are no fools so troublesome as those who have some wit.

Healthy scepticism is the basis of all accurate observation.