“It is not what we learn in conversation that enriches us. It is the elation that comes of swift contact with tingling currents of thought.”

There is nothing in the world so enjoyable as a thorough-going monomania.

To be brave in misfortune is to be worthy of manhood; to be wise in misfortune is to conquer fate.

There is always a secret irritation about a laugh in which we cannot join

People fed on sugared praises cannot be expected to feel an appetite for the black broth of honest criticism.

Wit is a pleasure-giving thing, largely because it eludes reason; but in the apprehension of an absurdity through the working of the comic spirit there is a foundation of reason, and an impetus to human companionship.

People who cannot recognize a palpable absurdity are very much in the way of civilization.

A vast deal of ingenuity is wasted every year in evoking the undesirable, in the careful construction of objects which burden life. Frankenstein was a large rather than an isolated example.

Science may carry us to Mars, but it will leave the earth peopled as ever by the inept.

Bargaining is essential to the life of the world; but nobody has ever claimed that it is an ennobling process.

The gayety of life, like the beauty and the moral worth of life, is a saving grace, which to ignore is folly, and to destroy is crime. There is no more than we need; there is barely enough to go round.

Wit is a thing capable of proof.

It is not begging but the beggar, who has forfeited favor with the elect.

Too much rigidity on the part of teachers should be followed by a brisk spirit of insubordination on the part of the taught.

Now the pessimist proper is the most modest of men. … under no circumstances does he presume to imagine that he, a mere unit of pain, can in any degree change or soften the remorseless words of fate.

Every misused word revenges itself forever upon a writer’s reputation.

Art… does not take kindly to facts, is helpless to grapple with theories, and is killed outright by a sermon.

The mind of the scholar, if he would leave it large and liberal, should come in contact with other minds.

I’ve spent so many years waiting for publishers to consider whether they wanted to print a book of mine, making contracts, taking months to fit it into the Fall list or the Spring list, fitting it into an advertising plan.

Ever since intelligent beings began to be in contact, and consequently in friction, they have felt the need to guard themselves against each other’s encroachments.

The universe never did make sense; I suspect it was built on government contract.

A happy childhood is poor preparation for human contacts.

Computer literacy is a contact with the activity of computing deep enough to make the computational equivalent of reading and writing fluent and enjoyable.

It’s always better to speak the language of the team. Not only for the direct contact with everyone.

Love is not a contract between two narcissists.