Speak roughly to your little boy, and beat him when he sneezes: he only does it to annoy, because he knows it teases.
—Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll) (British Anglican Author)
Vice is like a fury to the vicious mind, And turns delight itself to punishment.
—Ben Jonson (English Dramatist)
A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.
—Max Planck (German Theoretical Physicist)
When a member of our physical body is diseased and the whole body has to labor to restore it to health, we do not despise this diseased member or hold it under obligation because it needs all this assistance.
—John Calvin (French Theologian)
Every age has its peculiar folly: Some scheme, project, or fantasy into which it plunges, spurred on by the love of gain, the necessity of excitement, or the force of imitation.
—Charles Mackay (Scottish Poet, Journalist)
How many serious family quarrels, marriages out of spite, and alterations of wills, might have been prevented by a gentle dose of blue pill!—What awful instances of chronic dyspepsia in the characters of Hamlet and Othello! Banish dyspepsia and spirituous liquors from society, and you have no crime, or at least so little that you would not consider it worth mentioning.
—Charles Kingsley (English Clergyman)
We’re like children who always want to take apart watches to see how they work.
—Ernest Rutherford (New Zealand-born Physicist)
Everybody ought to do at least two things each day that he hates to do, just for practice.
—William James (American Philosopher)
Separation penetrates the disappearing person like a pigment and steeps him in gentle radiance.
—Walter Benjamin (German Literary Critic)
As it is our nature to be more moved by hope than fear, the example of one we see abundantly rewarded cheers and encourages us far more than the sight of many who have not been well treated disquiets us.
—Francesco Guicciardini (Italian Historian)
The inward sighs of humble penitence rise to the ear of heaven, when pealed hymns are scattered to the common air.
—Joanna Baillie (Scottish Dramatist, Poet)
Our natures are a lot like oil, mix us with anything else, and we strive to swim on top.
—Francis Beaumont (English Playwright)