Ten percent of people can think, another ten percent of people think that they think, and eighty percent of people would rather die than be made to think.

The world of men show like a comedy without laughter: populations, interests, government, history; 't is all toy figures in a toyhouse.

Invention breeds invention. No sooner is the electric telegraph devised than gutta-percha, the very material it requires, is found. The aeronaut is provided with gun-cotton, the very fuel he wants for his balloon.

Every man supposes himself not to be fully understood or appreciated.

Inaction is cowardice, but there can be no scholar without the heroic mind.

Nature arms each man with some faculty which enables him to do easily some feat impossible to any other, and thus makes him necessary to society. ... Society can never prosper, but must always be bankrupt, until every man does that which he was created to do.

When there is no vision, people perish.