Or have I passed my time in pouring words like water into empty sieves, rolling a stone up a hill and then down again, trying to prove an argument in the teeth of facts, and looking for causes in the dark, and not finding them?

We are all of us, more or less, the slaves of opinion.

The chain of habit coils itself around the heart like a serpent, to gnaw and stifle it.

The insolence of the vulgar is in proportion to their ignorance. They treat everything with contempt which they do not understand.

None but those who are happy in themselves can make others so.

Mankind are a herd of knaves and fools. It is necessary to join the crowd, or get out of their way, in order not to be trampled to death by them.

As we are poetical in our natures, so we delight in fable.