Species do not grow more perfect: the weaker dominate the strong, again and again-the reason being that they are the great majority, and they are also cleverer. Darwin forgot the mind (- that is English!): the weak possess more mind. ... To acquire mind, one must need mind-one loses it when one no longer needs it.

Iron rusts from disuse; water loses its purity from stagnation... even so does inaction sap the vigor of the mind.

The mind passes in an instant from east to west; and all the great incorporeal things resemble these very closely in speed.

It is true that impatience, the mother of stupidity, praises brevity, as if such persons had not life long enough to serve them to acquire a complete knowledge of one single subject, such as the human body; and then they want to comprehend the mind of God in which the universe is included, weighing it minutely and mincing it into infinite parts, as if they had to dissect it!

Knowledge of the past and of the places of the earth is the ornament and food of the mind of man.

As every divided kingdom falls, so every mind divided between many studies confounds and saps itself.