A man of great common sense and good taste - meaning thereby a man without originality or moral courage.

Make me a beautiful word for doing things tomorrow; for that surely is a great and blessed invention.

Tradition will accustom people to any atrocity

A fool-proof method for sculpting an elephant: first, get a huge block of marble; then you chip away everything that doesn't look like an elephant.

Let wife and child perish, and lay bricks for your last crust, rather than part with an iota of your [copy]rights.

For the pre-Darwinian age had come to be regarded as a Dark Age in which men still believed that the book of Genesis was a standard scientific treatise, and that the only additions to it were Galileo'a demonstration of Leonardo da Vinci's simple remark that the earth is a moon of the sun, Sir Humphrey Davy's invention of the safety lamp, the discovery of electricity, the application of steam to industrial purposes, and the penny post.

You can always tell an old soldier by the inside of his holsters and cartridge boxes. The young ones carry pistols and cartridges; the old ones, grub.