There are men whose sense of humour is so ill developed that they still bear a grudge against Copernicus because he dethroned them from the central position in the universe. They feel it a personal affront that they can no longer consider themselves the pivot upon which turns the whole of created things.

The ideas for stories that thronged my brain would not let me rest till I had got rid of them by writing them.

I'm only twenty-five. If I've made a mistake I have time to correct it.

Thank God, I can look at a sunset now without having to think how to describe it

You will have to learn many tedious things,...which you will forget the moment you have passed your final examination, but in anatomy it is better to have learned and lost than never to have learned at all.

Has it occurred to you that transmigration is at once an explanation and a justification of the evil of the world? If the evils we suffer are the result of sins committed in our past lives, we can bear them with resignation and hope that if in this one we strive toward virtue out future lives will be less afflicted.

I can imagine no more comfortable frame of mind for the conduct of life than a humorous resignation.