Do we write books so that they shall merely be read? Don't we also write them for employment in the household? For one that is read from start to finish, thousands are leafed through, other thousands lie motionless, others are jammed against mouseholes, thrown at rats, others are stood on, sat on, drummed on, have gingerbread baked on them or are used to light pipes.

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

Imagine the world so greatly magnified that particles of light look like twenty-four-pound cannon balls.

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

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

It not seldom happens that in the purposeless rovings and wanderings of the imagination we hunt down such game as can be put to use by our purposeful philosophy in its well-ordered household.

The most successful tempters and thus the most dangerous are the deluded deluders.