Men need some kind of external activity, because they are inactive within.

There is no absurdity so palpable but that it may be firmly planted in the human head if you only begin to inculcate it before the age of five, by constantly repeating it with an air of great solemnity.

What people commonly call Fate is, as a general rule, nothing but their own stupid and foolish conduct.

In reading, the mind is, in fact, only the playground of another's thoughts.

Religion is the masterpiece of the art of animal training, for it trains people as to how they shall think.

Always to see the general in the particular is the very foundation of genius.

Newspapers are the second hand of history. This hand, however, is usually not only of inferior metal to the other hands, it also seldom works properly.