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

It is astonishing how much the word infinitely is misused: everything is infinitely more beautiful, infinitely better, etc. The concept must have something pleasing about it, or its misuse could not have become so general.

The highest point to which a weak but experienced mind can rise is detecting the weakness of better men.

With a pen in my hand I have successfully stormed bulwarks from which others armed with sword and excommunication have been repulsed.

Affectation is a very good word when someone does not wish to confess to what he would none the less like to believe of himself.

The natural scientists of the previous age knew less than we do and believed they were very close to the goal: we have taken very great steps in its direction and now discover we are still very far away from it. With the most rational philosophers an increase in their knowledge is always attended by an increased conviction of their ignorance.

He was always smoothing and polishing himself, and in the end he became blunt before he was sharp.