One is rarely an impulsive innovator after the age of sixty, but one can still be a very fine orderly and inventive thinker. One rarely procreates children at that age, but one is all the more skilled at educating those who have already been procreated, and education is procreation of another kind.

Most men of education are more superstitious than they admit - nay, than they think.

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

The highest level than can be reached by a mediocre but experienced mind is a talent for uncovering the weaknesses of those greater than itself.

A sure sign of a good book is that you like it more the older you get.

Brevity: To say at once whatever is to be said.

Deliberate virtue is never worth much: The virtue of feeling or habit is the thing.