The highest level than can be reached by a mediocre but experienced mind is a talent for uncovering the weaknesses of those greater than itself.

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

I have often noticed that when people come to understand a mathematical proposition in some other way than that of the ordinary demonstration, they promptly say, "Oh, I see. That's how it must be." This is a sign that they explain it to themselves from within their own system.

To make astute people believe one is what one is not is, in most cases, harder than actually to become what one wishes to appear.

Bad writers are those who try to express their own feeble ideas in the language of good ones.

Libraries can in general be too narrow or too wide for the soul.

Rational free spirits are the light brigade who go on ahead and reconnoiter the ground which the heavy brigade of the orthodox will eventually occupy.