The one mistake which is committed habitually by people who have the gift of half-genius, is waiting for inspiration.

The one mistake which is committed habitually by people who have the gift of half-genius, is waiting for inspiration.

Society will be obeyed; if you refuse obedience, you must take the consequences. Society has only one law, and that is custom. Even religion itself is socially powerful only just so far as it has custom on its side.

Conversation is interesting in proportion to the originality of the central ideas which serve as pivots and the fitness of the little facts and observations which are contributed by the talkers.

Culture is like wealth; it makes us more ourselves, it enables us to express ourselves

Woe unto him that is never alone, and cannot bear to be alone.

Of all intellectual friendships, none are so beautiful as those which subsist between old and ripe men and their younger brethren in science or literature or art. It is, by these private friendships, even more than by public performance, that the tradition of sound thinking and great doing is perpetuated from age to age.