The extremes of vice and virtue are alike detestable, and absolute virtue is as sure to kill a man as absolute vice is.

Any fool can tell the truth, but it requires a man of some sense to know how to lie well.

Flying. Whatever any other organism has been able to do man should surely be able to do also, though he may go a different way about it.

It seems to be the fate of man to seek all his consolations in futurity. The time present is seldom able to fill desire or imagination with immediate enjoyment, and we are forced to supply its deficiencies by recollection or anticipation.

The Bible may be the truth, but it is not the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

When people talk of atoms obeying fixed laws, they are either ascribing some kind of intelligence and free will to atoms or they are talking nonsense. There is no obedience unless there is at any rate a potentiality of disobeying.

Prayers are to men as dolls are to children. They are not without use and comfort, but it is not easy to take them very seriously.