The fickleness of the women I love is only equalled by the infernal constancy of the women who love me.

A book is like a child: it is easier to bring it into the world than to control it when it is launched there.

The danger of crippling thought, the danger of obstructing the formation of the public mind by specially suppressing ... representations is far greater than any real danger that there is from such representations.

Make it a rule never to give a child a book you would not read yourself.

The notion that Nature does not proceed by jumps is only one of the budget of plausible lies that we call classical education. Nature always proceeds by jumps. She may spend twenty thousand years making up her mind to jump; but when she makes it up at last, the jump is big enough to take us into a new age.

Of the two lots, the woman's lot of perpetual motherhood, and the man's of perpetual babyhood, I prefer the man's.

The secret to success is to offend the greatest number of people.