If you want to improve your understanding, drink coffee.

[T]he 47th proposition in Euclid might now be voted down with as much ease as any proposition in politics; and therefore if Lord Hawkesbury hates the abstract truths of science as much as he hates concrete truth in human affairs, now is his time for getting rid of the multiplication table, and passing a vote of censure upon the pretensions of the hypotenuse.

I look upon Switzerland as an inferior sort of Scotland.

What would life be without arithmetic, but a scene of horrors?

Life is to be fortified by many friendships. To love and to be loved is the greatest happiness of existence.

The two women exchanged the type of glance women use when there is no knife handy.

A great deal of talent is lost to the world for the want of a little courage. Every day sends to their graves a number of obscure men who have only remained obscure because their timidity has prevented them from making a first effort; and who, if they could only have been induced to begin, would in all probability have gone great lengths in the career of fame.