Nobody is more inferior than those who insist on being equal.

To be ashamed of one's immorality: that is a step on the staircase at whose end one is also ashamed of one's morality.

Better know nothing than half-know many things.

We count the courtesies accorded us by unpopular people as offenses.

The most welcome joke to me is the one that takes the place of a heavy, not altogether innocuous thought, at once a cautionary hint of the finger and a flash of the eye.

Here is a hero who did nothing but shake the tree as soon as the fruit was ripe. Does this seem to be too small a thing to you? Then take a good look at the tree he shook.

In large states public education will always be mediocre, for the same reason that in large kitchens the cooking is usually bad.