The most intellectual of men are moved quite as much by the circumstances which they are used to as by their own will. The active voluntary part of a man is very small, and if it were not economized by a sleepy kind of habit, its results would be null.

I'm not the kind of writer who's able to block out the world around me. I'm mindful of our own haves and have-nots, how our culture often blames and punishes the have-nots. I worry about our precarious economic and political climate.

The whole history of civilization is strewn with creeds and institutions which were invaluable at first, and deadly afterwards

Life is a school of probability.

Business is really more agreeable than pleasure; it interests the whole mind, the aggregate nature of man more continuously, and more deeply. But it does not look as if it did.

A Parliament is nothing less than a big meeting of more or less idle people.

Stupidity is nature's favorite resource for preserving consistency of opinion.