It is impossible to think of a man of any actual force and originality, universally recognized as having those qualities, who spent his whole life appraising and describing the work of other men.

It is the dull man who is always sure, and the sure man who is always dull.

I know some who are constantly drunk on books as other men are drunk on whiskey.

On the one side was bigotry, ignorance, hatred, superstition, every sort of blackness that the human mind is capable of. On the other side was sense.

The notion that anything is gained by fixing a language in a groove is cherished only by pedants.

Wife: one who is sorry she did it, but would undoubtedly do it again.

Only to often on meeting scientific men, even those of genuine distiction, one finds that they are dull fellows and very stupid. They know one thing to excess; they know nothing else. Pursuing facts too doggedly and unimaginatively, they miss all the charming things that are not facts. ... Too much learning, like too little learning, is an unpleasant and dangerous thing.