If we could imagine such a man, that is a man who could invent the fly and send him out on his mission and furnish him with his orders: Depart into the uttermost corners of the earth and, diligently do your appointed work. Persecute the sick child, settle upon its eyes, its face, its hands, and gnaw and pester and sting, worry and fret and madden the worn and tried mother who watches by the child and humbly prays for mercy and relief with the pathetic faith of the deceived and the unteachable.

You have noticed that the human being is a curiosity. In times past he has had (and worn out and flung away) hundreds and hundreds of religions; today he has hundreds and hundreds of religions, and launches not fewer than three new ones every year. I could enlarge on that number and still be within the facts.

Never learn to do anything: if you don't learn, you'll always find someone else to do it for you.

How easy it is to make people believe a lie, and [how] hard it is to undo that work again!

As a rule, we go about with masks, we go about looking honest, and we are able to conceal ourselves all through the day.

The man who sets out to carry a cat by its tail learns something that will always be useful and which never will grow dim or doubtful.

I should have been glad to acquire some sort of idea of Hindu theology, ... but the difficulties were too great.