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

Actual aristocracy cannot be abolished by any law: all the law can do is decree how it is to be imparted and who is to acquire it.

A good part of the fame of most celebrated men is due to the shortsightedness of their admirers

A good method of discovery is to imagine certain members of a system removed and then see how what is left would behave: for example, where would we be if iron were absent from the world: this is an old example.

The noble simplicity in the works of nature only too often originates in the noble shortsightedness of him who observes it.

Everyone is a genius at least once a year.

To see every day how people get the name 'genius' just as the wood-lice in the cellar the name 'millipede'-not because they have that many feet, but because most people don't want to count to 14-this has had the result that I don't believe anyone any more without checking.