“There are some who speak well and write badly. For the place and the audience warm them, and draw from their minds more than they think of without that warmth.”

“We run carelessly to the precipice, after we have put something before us to prevent us seeing it.”

“To ridicule philosophy is truly philosophical.[Fr., Se moquer de la philosophie c'est vraiment philosophe.]”

“When we see a natural style, we are astonished and charmed; for we expected to see an author, and we find a person.”

“When we wish to correct with advantage, and to show another that he errs, we must notice from what side he views the matter, for on that side it is usually true.”

“It has come to be practically a sort of rule in literature that a man, having once shown himself capable of original writing, is entitled thenceforth to steal from the writings of others at discretion.”

“A certain awkwardness marks the use of borrowed thoughts; but as soon as we have learned what to do with them, they become our own.”

“Meek young men grow up in libraries, believing it their duty to accept the views which Cicero, which Locke, which Bacon, have given, forgetful that Cicero, Locke, and Bacon were only young men in libraries, when they wrote these books.”

“Nor age so eat up my invention.”

“Ideas are the very coinage of your brain.”

“Where art thou, Muse, that thou forget'st so long / To speak of that which gives thee all thy might?”

“All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.”

“The Good Spirit never cared for the colleges, and though all men and boys were now drilled in Greek, Latin, and Mathematics, it had quite left these shells high on the beach, and was creating and feeding other matters [science] at other ends of the world.”

“Nature is a rag-merchant, who works up every shred and ort and end into new creations; like a good chemist, whom I found, the other day, in his laboratory, converting his old shirts into pure white sugar.”

“One has to secrete a jelly in which to slip quotations down people's throats - and one always secretes too much jelly.”

“I hate the way people use PowerPoints instead of thinking”

“What a poor appearance the tales of poets make when stripped of the colours which music puts upon them, and recited in simple prose.”