To expect a man to retain everything that he has ever read is like expecting him to carry about in his body everything that he has ever eaten.

For an author to write as he speaks is just as reprehensible as the opposite fault, to speak as he writes; for this gives a pedantic effect to what he says, and at the same time makes him hardly intelligible.

Boredom is just the reverse side of fascination.

The bad thing about all religions is that, instead of being able to confess their allegorical nature, they have to conceal it.

Marrying means, to grasp blindfolded into a sack hoping to find out an eel out of an assembly of snakes.

No greater mistake can be made than to imagine that what has been written latest is always the more correct; that what is written later on is an improvement on what was written previously; and that every change means progress.

A word too much always defeats its purpose.