To be master of any branch of knowledge, you must master those which lie next to it, and thus to know anything you must know all.

On every stem, on every leaf,... and at the root of everything that grew, was a professional specialist in the shape of grub, caterpillar, aphis, or other expert, whose business it was to devour that particular part.

There is one gratification an old author can afford a certain class of critics; that namely, of comparing him as he is with what he was. It is a pleasure to mediocrity to have its superiors brought within range.

Certainty generally is illusion, and repose is not the destiny of man.

The law is the witness and external deposit of our moral life. Its history is the history of the moral development of the race.

But the word "right" is one of the most deceptive of pitfalls; it is so easy to slip from a qualified meaning in the premise to an unqualified one in the conclusion. Most rights are qualified.

Every real thought on every real subject knocks the wind out of somebody or other.