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.

Any foolish boy can stamp on a beetle, but all the professors in the world cannot make a beetle.

There is a wide difference between the original thinker and the merely learned man.

The man who sees two or three generations is like one who sits in the conjuror's booth at a fair, and sees the same tricks two or three times. They are meant to be seen only once.

That arithmetic is the basest of all mental activities is proved by the fact that it is the only one that can be accomplished by a machine.

(Politeness is) a tacit agreement that people's miserable defects, whether moral or intellectual, shall on either side be ignored and not be made the subject of reproach.

For the purpose of acquiring gain, everything else is pushed aside or thrown overboard, for example, as is philosophy by the professors of philosophy.