“My idea of an agreeable person is a person who agrees with me. ”

“Things must be done by parties, not by persons using parties as tools.”

“He was distinguished for ignorance; for he had only one idea, and that was wrong.”

“It has been my lot to have found myself in many distant lands. I have never been in one without finding a Scotchman, and I never found a Scotchman who was not head of the poll.”

“You asked me where I generally lived. In my workshop [i.e. in his study] in the mornings and always in the library in the evening. Books are companions even if you don’t open them.”

“An author who speaks about their own books is almost as bad as a mother who speaks about her own children.”

“All is mystery; but he is a slave who will not struggle to penetrate the dark veil.”