As soon as you know a man to be blind, you imagine that you can see it from his back.

He marvelled at the fact that the cats had two holes cut in their fur at precisely the spot where their eyes were.

If nature be regarded as the teacher and we poor human beings as her pupils, the human race presents a very curious picture. We all sit together at a lecture and possess the necessary principles for understanding it, yet we always pay more attention to the chatter of our fellow students than to the lecturer's discourse. Or, if our neighbor copies something down, we sneak it from him, stealing what he himself may have heard imperfectly, and add it to our own errors of spelling and opinion.

Man is to be found in reason, God in the passions.

The great rule: If the little bit you have is nothing special in itself, at least find a way of saying it that is a little bit special.

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.

A good metaphor is something even the police should keep an eye on.