All men are ordinary men; the extraordinary men are those who know it.

She had never really listened to anyone in her life; which, some said, was why she had survived.

The real trouble with this world of ours is not that it is an unreasonable world, nor even that it is a reasonable one. The commonest kind of trouble is that it is nearly reasonable, but not quite. ... It looks just a little more mathematical and regular than it is; its exactitude is obvious, but its inexactitude is hidden; its wilderness lies in wait.

One may understand the cosmos, but never the ego; the self is more distant than any star.

For Scotland has a double dose of the poison called heredity; the sense of blood in the aristocrat, the sense of doom in the Calvinist.

Physical science is like simple addition: it is either infallible or it is false.

I am a journalist and have no earthly motives except curiosity and personal vanity.