Nothing makes one old so quickly as the ever-present thought that one is growing older.

There can hardly be a stranger commodity in the world than books. Printed by people who don't understand them; sold by people who don't understand them; bound, criticized and read by people who don't understand them; and now even written by people who don't understand them.

We cannot remember too often that when we observe nature, and especially the ordering of nature, it is always ourselves alone we are observing.

To many people virtue consists chiefly in repenting faults, not in avoiding them.

Reading means borrowing.

Man can acquire accomplishments or he can become an animal, whichever he wants. God makes the animals, man makes himself.

The most entertaining surface on earth is the human face.