When an acquaintance goes by I often step back from my window, not so much to spare him the effort of acknowledging me as to spare myself the embarrassment of seeing that he has not done so.

Erudition can produce foliage without bearing fruit.

The celebrated painter Gainsborough got as much pleasure from seeing violins as from hearing them.

It is almost impossible to carry the torch of truth through a crowd without singeing somebody's beard.

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

Pain warns us not to exert our limbs to the point of breaking them. How much knowledge would we not need to recognize this by the exercise of mere reason.

The construction of the universe is certainly very much easier to explain than is that of the plant.