There is no greater impediment to progress in the sciences than the desire to see it take place too quickly.

The book which most deserved to be banned would be a catalog of banned books.

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

The great trick of regarding small departures from the truth as the truth itself - on which is founded the entire integral calculus - is also the basis of our witty speculations, where the whole thing would often collapse if we considered the departures with philosophical rigour.

In every man there is something of all men.

An hour-glass is a reminder not only of time's quick flight, but also of the dust to which we must at last return

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.