There are people who can never forgive a beggar for their not having given him anything.

Who is going to cast out an error to which he has given birth and replace it with an adopted truth?

To me it's still a greater miracle when a fly flies than when a human being undertakes to do so.

A father's pride, laid on thick, has always made me wish that the fellow had at least experienced some pain during procreation.

I had a terrible vision: I saw an encyclopedia walk up to a polymath and open him up.

This is something that I cannot get over -- that a whole line could be written by half a man, that a work could be built on the quicksand of a character.

To be perfect, one lacks only a defect.