A scholar has to know a little of everything.

Everybody knows that the great reversed triangle of land, with its base in the north and its apex in the south, which is called India, embraces fourteen hundred thousand square miles, upon which is spread unequally a population of one hundred and eighty millions of souls.

What use are the best of arguments when they can be destroyed by force?

Reality provides us with facts so romantic that imagination itself could add nothing to them.

[we see that] science is eminently perfectible, and that each theory has constantly to give way to a fresh one.

We are of opinion that instead of letting books grow moldy behind an iron grating, far from the vulgar gaze, it is better to let them wear out by being read.

On the earth, even in the darkest night, the light never wholly abandons his rule. It is diffused and subtle, but little as may remain, the retina of the eye is sensible of it.