Can we ring the bells backward? Can we unlearn the arts that pretend to civilize, and then burn the world? There is a march of science; but who shall beat the drums for its retreat?

We encourage one another in mediocrity.

For God's sake (I never was more serious) don't make me ridiculous any more by terming me gentle-hearted in print.

Of all sound of all bells... most solemn and touching is the peal which rings out the Old Year.

Since all the maids are good and lovable, from whence come the bad wives?

Nothing puzzles me more than time and space; and yet nothing troubles me less, as I never think about them.

Think what you would have been now, if instead of being fed with tales and old wives' fables in childhood, you had been crammed with geography and natural history!