“...But that is a method for cowards; the brave man goes out into the hall, comes back with a stick, and says firmly, "You have just deliberately and cruelly exposed my ignorance before this company; I shall, therefore, beat you soundly with this stick in the presence of them all."This you then do to him or he to you, mutatis mutandis, ceteris paribus; and that is all I have to say on Ignorance.”

“Do not, I beseech you, be troubled about the increase of forces already in dissolution. You have mistaken the hour of the night; it is already morning.”

“No, she laughed." How on earth could that be done? If you try to laugh and say ‘No’ at the same time, it sounds like neighing — yet people are perpetually doing it in novels. If they did it in real life they would be locked up.”

“Steep are the seas and savaging and coldIn broken waters terrible to try;And vast against the winter night the wold,And harbourless for any sail to lie.But you shall lead me to the lights, and IShall hymn you in a harbour story told.This is the faith that I have held and hold,And this is that in which I mean to die.”

“I have wandered all my life, and I have traveled; the difference between the two being this, that we wander for distraction, but we travel for fulfillment.”

“Life is a veil, its paths are dark and roughOnly because we do not know enoughWhen Science has discovered something moreWe shall be happier than we were before.”

“For I know that we laughers have a gross cousinship with the most high, and it is this contrast and perpetual quarrel which feeds a spring of merriment in the soul of a sane man.”