How often do we not see children ruined through the virtues, real or supposed, of their parents?

History is a bucket of ashes.

It is not sufficiently considered in the hour of exultation, that all human excellence is comparative; that no man performs much but in proportion to what other accomplish, or to the time and opportunities which have been allowed him.

There is one class of mind that loves to lean on rules and definitions, and another that discards them as far as possible. A faddist will generally ask for a definition of faddism, and one who is not a faddist will be impatient of being asked to give one.

I am the enfant terrible of literature and science. If I cannot, and I know I cannot, get the literary and scientific bigwigs to give me a shilling, I can, and I know I can, heave bricks into the middle of them.

There is no permanent absolute unchangeable truth; what we should pursue is the most convenient arrangement of our ideas.

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