The American who first discovered Columbus made a bad discovery.

The "second sight" possessed by the Highlanders in Scotland is actually a foreknowledge of future events. I believe they possess this gift because they don't wear trousers.

Delight at having understood a very abstract and obscure system leads most people to believe in the truth of what it demonstrates.

It is in the gift for employing all the vicissitudes of life to one's own advantage and to that of one's craft that a large part of genius consists.

Imagine the world so greatly magnified that particles of light look like twenty-four-pound cannon balls.

The human tendency to regard little things as important has produced very many great things.

Many things about our bodies would not seem to us so filthy and obscene if we did not have the idea of nobility in our heads.