If we thought more for ourselves we would have very many more bad books and very many more good ones.

The worst thing you can possibly do is worrying and thinking about what you could have done.

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.

Astronomy is perhaps the science whose discoveries owe least to chance, in which human understanding appears in its whole magnitude, and through which man can best learn how small he is.

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

A sure sign of a good book is that you like it more the older you get.

It is too bad if you have to do everything upon reflection and can't do anything from early habit.