What is the professor's function? To pass on to numskulls a body of so-called knowledge that is fragmentary, unimportant, and largely untrue.

In the long run all battles are lost, and so are all wars.

Writing books is certainly a most unpleasant occupation. It is lonesome, unsanitary, and maddening. Many authors go crazy.

The best years are the forties; after fifty a man begins to deteriorate, but in the forties he is at the maximum of his villainy.

My guess is that well over eighty per cent. of the human race goes through life without having a single original thought.

The most valuable of all human possessions, next to a superior and disdainful air, is the reputation of being well-to-do.

When I die, I shall be content to vanish into nothingness.... No show, however good, could conceivably be good forever I do not believe in immortality, and have no desire for it.