It is no use speaking in soft, gentle tones if everyone else is shouting.

What I have known with respect to myself, has tended much to lessen both my admiration, and my contempt, of others.

Will is nothing more than a particular case of the general doctrine of association of ideas, and therefore a perfectly mechanical thing.

I have procured air [oxygen] ... between five and six times as good as the best common air that I have ever met with.

This is unfortunately a world in which things find it difficult, frequently impossible, to live up to their names.

The wisdom of one generation will be folly in the next.

The feeling of it to my lungs was not sensibly different from that of common air; but I fancied that my breast felt peculiarly light and easy for some time afterwards. Who can tell but that, in time, this pure air may become a fashionable article in luxury. Hitherto only two mice and myself have had the privilege of breathing it.