“One might call habit a moral friction: something that prevents the mind from gliding over things but connects it with them and makes it hard for it to free itself from them.”

“There is something in our minds like sunshine and the weather, which is not under our control. When I write, the best things come to me from I know not where.”

“There are very many people who read simply to prevent themselves from thinking.”

“With most men, unbelief in one thing springs from blind belief in another.”

“You can make a good living from soothsaying but not from truthsaying”

“The highest level than can be reached by a mediocre but experienced mind is a talent for uncovering the weaknesses of those greater than itself.”

“Prejudices are so to speak the mechanical instincts of men: through their prejudices they do without any effort many things they would find too difficult to think through to the point of resolving to do them.”