Most of us retain enough of the theological attitude to think that we are little gods.

The advice of the elders to young men is very apt to be as unreal as a list of the hundred best books.

There is in all men a demand for the superlative, so much so that the poor devil that has no other way of reaching it attains it by getting drunk.

To be civilized is to be potentially master of all possible ideas, and that means that one has got beyond being shocked, although one preserves one's own moral aesthetic preferences.

The world is always ready to receive talent with open arms. Very often it does not know what to do with genius.

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.

To have doubted one's own first principles is the mark of a civilized man.