Act decidedly and take the consequences. No good is ever done by hesitation.

Try to learn something about everything and everything about something.

The man of science has learned to believe in justification, not by faith, but by verification.

The most considerable difference I note among men is not in their readiness to fall into error, but in their readiness to acknowledge these inevitable lapses.

Of moral purpose I see no trace in Nature. That is an article of exclusively human manufacture and very much to our credit.

To a clear eye the smallest fact is a window through which the infinite may be seen.

There are savages without God in any proper sense of the word, but none without ghosts.

Can any one deny that the old Israelites conceived Jahveh not only in the image of a man, but in that of a changeable, irritable, and, occasionally, violent man?

The scientific spirit is of more value than its products, and irrationally held truths may be more harmful than reasoned errors.

What we call rational grounds for our beliefs are often extremely irrational attempts to justify our instincts.

I am too much of a skeptic to deny the possibility of anything.

Before every show, I have to put perfume on. I know the crowd's not necessarily going to smell me, but when I smell good, I feel like I can dominate the room.

Trapnest means “The Trapped Den” Once we enter it, we can’t get out by our own means I thought that that name could only come from a man who love having power over other.

In one book, CACHALOT, just for my own amusement, every character is based directly on someone I have known.

A university is not a political party, and an education is not an indoctrination.

Thank Heaven! The crisis /The danger is past, and the lingering illness, is over at last /, and the fever called ''Living'' is conquered at last.

Lord, make my way prosperous not that I achieve high station, but that my life be an exhibit to the value of knowing God.

You may be sure, dear Crito, that inaccurate language is not only in itself a mistake: it implants evil in men's souls.

I'm interested, I suppose, in tortured power.

If there's another thing that sportswriting teaches you, it is that there are no transcendent themes in life. In all cases things are here and they're over, and that has to be enough.

I don't understand how you can be a decent writer and not know people.