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

Many intelligent people, when about to write . . . , force on their minds a certain notion about style, just as they screw up their faces when they sit for their portraits.

If another Messiah was born he could hardly do so much good as the printing-press.

As I take up my pen I feel myself so full, so equal to my subject, and see my book so clearly before me in embryo, I would almost like to try to say it all in a single word.

One should never trust a person who, while assuring you of something, puts his hands on his heart.

In every man there is something of all men.

A donkey appears to me like a horse translated into Dutch.