In politics and in trade, bruisers and pirates are of better promise than talkers and clerks.

I admire answers to which no answers can be made.

A man known to us only as a celebrity in politics or in trade, gains largely in our esteem if we discover that he has some intellectual taste or skill.

We do not make a world of our own, but fall into institutions already made, and have to accommodate ourselves to them to be useful at all.

I covet truth; beauty is unripe childhood's cheat; I leave it behind with the games of youth.

We are a puny and fickle folk. Avarice, hesitation, and following are our diseases.

Skepticism is slow suicide.